ABSTRACT
Non-deflationists might embrace intentionalism, often because they take the interpersonal analogy seriously or want to keep a stronger form of deception in self-deception. This chapter considers both intentionalist approaches and divided mind accounts. Non-deflationary accounts hold that self-deception is robust in its psychological complexity. Alfred Mele’s understanding of intentional action focuses on the concept of trying or attempting to do something, holding that if people try to do something and they succeed, then they did that action intentionally. The two most prominent intentionalist theories have been those of Donald Davidson and David Pears. David Pears’s book Motivated Irrationality was one of the earlier works by a first-rate, established analytic philosopher to construct a philosophy of mind and action by engaging with the relatively new discoveries of cognitive and social psychology. Davidson’s alternative way of dividing the mind – what Pears calls the “functional theory” – is wholly driven by considerations of rationality.
