Philosophy of Mind Seminar (Friday - Week 4, TT25)

Title: Mythomania and the Sense of Self 

Abstract: The aim of this talk is to argue for a connection between a well-functioning psychology that practices distinctively first personal methods for gaining access to the contents of one’s own mind, and the dynamic maintenance of a robust sense of self – an essential component of psychological and social flourishing at large. As part of this argued claim I argue that habitual truth-telling is an important, and perhaps surprising, component of these conditions for flourishing. To focus our minds on these themes, I consider the condition of mythomania, or pathological lying. There are a number of candidate diagnostic explanations for our intution of psychological perversion in these cases, but I argue that none of them fully satisfies. A major source of the intuition that pathological liars are psychologically perverted in some way – I argue – is that their compulsive patterns of widescale and extravagant lies depletes the liar's capacity for habitual engagement in the ordinary first personal ways of knowing themselves. This, I argue in turn, is apt to distort the individual’s sense of self. Habitual truth-telling is not only morally advisable; it’s good for a well-functioning sense of self too.