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Neil Van Leeuwen

    Neil Van Leeuwen

    Georgia State University, Philosophy, Faculty Member
    Papers
    Group identity and the willful subversion of rationality: A reply to De Cruz and Levymore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    De Cruz and Levy, in their commentaries on Religion as Make-Believe, present distinct questions that can be addressed by clarifying one core idea. De Cruz asks whether one can rationally assess the mental state of religious credence that... more
    De Cruz and Levy, in their commentaries on Religion as Make-Believe, present distinct questions that can be addressed by clarifying one core idea. De Cruz asks whether one can rationally assess the mental state of religious credence that I theorize. Levy asks why we should not explain the data on religious "belief" merely by positing factual beliefs with religious contents, which happen to be rationally acquired through testimony. To both, I say that having religious credences is p-irrational: a purposeful departure from rational thought and behavior, where the purpose in question is maintaining a group identity.
    Publication Name: Mind & Language
    Research Interests:
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    Pennywise Parsimony: Langland-Hassan on Imaginationmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    This essay discusses Peter Langland-Hassan's approach to "explaining imagination" as it plays out in his recent book of that title. Langland-Hassan offers a theory of “attitude imagining” that avoids positing what he calls a “sui generis... more
    This essay discusses Peter Langland-Hassan's approach to "explaining imagination" as it plays out in his recent book of that title. Langland-Hassan offers a theory of “attitude imagining” that avoids positing what he calls a “sui generis cognitive attitude.” This theory attempts to explain things like pretend play, hypothetical reasoning, and cognition of fiction; to explain them using only (what he calls) more “basic” mental states like beliefs and desires; and thus to explain them without positing a distinct cognitive attitude of imagining, as many theorists do (including me). In other words, “attitude imagining,” for Langland-Hassan, is whatever explains those things (except for a distinct cognitive attitude of imagining itself). Despite the theoretical interest of this approach, I argue it is ontologically pennywise and pound foolish: for a slight savings in ontological complexity it dramatically reduces explanatory power.
    Publication Name: Analysis
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    The Trinity and the Light Switch: Two Faces of Beliefmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    Sometimes people posit "beliefs" to explain mundane instrumental actions (e.g., Neil believes the switch is connected to the light, so he flipped the switch to illuminate the room). Sometimes people posit "beliefs" to explain group... more
    Sometimes people posit "beliefs" to explain mundane instrumental actions (e.g., Neil believes the switch is connected to the light, so he flipped the switch to illuminate the room). Sometimes people posit "beliefs" to explain group affiliation or identity (e.g., in order to belong to the Christian Reformed Church Neil must believe that God is triune). If we set aside the commonality of the word "belief," we can pose a crucial question: Is the cognitive attitude typically involved in the first "light switch" sort of case the same as the cognitive attitude typically involved in the second "Trinity" sort of case? Or: Is mundanely believing the same cognitive relation as groupishly believing? In this essay, I argue that the answer is no. Mundane Beliefs play their instrumental roles well if they are true, and their manner of processing is accordingly sensitive to evidence. Groupish Beliefs play their identity-constituting roles well if they are distinctive, and their manners of processing accordingly allow for and often support distortions of evidence and truth. The manners of processing are thus so different that--despite the common word "belief"--philosophy of mind and epistemology would do well to recognize distinct cognitive attitudes.
    Publication Date: 2024
    Publication Name: The Nature of Belief (eds. E. Schwitzgebel & J. Jong, forthcoming OUP)
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    The Puzzle of Beliefmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    The notion of belief appears frequently in cognitive science. Yet it has resisted definition of the sort that could clarify inquiry. How then might a cognitive science of belief proceed? Here we propose a form of pluralism about... more
    The notion of belief appears frequently in cognitive science. Yet it has resisted definition of the sort that could clarify inquiry. How then might a cognitive science of belief proceed? Here we propose a form of pluralism about believing. According to this view, there are importantly different ways to "believe" an idea. These distinct psychological kinds occur within a multi-dimensional property space, with different property clusters within that space constituting distinct varieties of believing. We propose that discovering such property clusters is empirically tractable, and that this approach can help sidestep merely verbal disputes about what constitutes "belief."
    DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13245
    Publication Date: 2023
    Publication Name: Cognitive Science
    Research Interests:
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    Two Concepts of Belief Strength: Epistemic Confidence and Identity Centralitymore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    What does it mean to have “strong beliefs”? My thesis is that it can mean two very different things. That is, there are two distinct psychological features to which “strong belief” can refer, and these often come apart. I call the first... more
    What does it mean to have “strong beliefs”? My thesis is that it can mean two very different things. That is, there are two distinct psychological features to which “strong belief” can refer, and these often come apart. I call the first feature epistemic confidence and the second identity centrality. They are conceptually distinct and, if we take ethnographies of religion seriously, distinct in fact as well. If that’s true, it’s methodologically important for the psychological sciences to have measures that tease them apart. In this paper, I critique some measures that are currently in use and propose some strategies for developing measurement tools that track the distinction in question.
    DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.939949
    Publication Date: 2022
    Publication Name: Frontiers in Psychology
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    To Believe is Not to Think: A Cross-Cultural Findingmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    Are religious beliefs psychologically different from matter-of-fact beliefs? Many scholars say no: that religious people, in a matter-of-fact way, simply think their deities exist. Others say yes: that religious beliefs are more... more
    Are religious beliefs psychologically different from matter-of-fact beliefs? Many scholars say no: that religious people, in a matter-of-fact way, simply think their deities exist. Others say yes: that religious beliefs are more compartmentalized, less certain, and less responsive to evidence. Little research to date has explored whether lay people themselves recognize such a difference. We addressed this question in a series of sentence completion tasks, conducted in five settings that differed both in religious traditions and in language: the US, Ghana, Thailand, China, and Vanuatu. Participants everywhere routinely used different verbs to describe religious versus matter-of-fact beliefs, and they did so even when the ascribed belief contents were held constant and only the surrounding context varied. These findings support the view that people from diverse cultures and language communities recognize a difference in attitude type between religious belief and everyday matter-of-fact belief.
    DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00044
    Volume: 5
    Page Numbers: 91-99
    Publication Date: 2021
    Publication Name: Open Mind
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    Imagining Stories: Attitudes and Operatorsmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    This essay argues that there are theoretical benefits to keeping distinct—more pervasively than the literature has done so far—the psychological states of imagining that p versus believing that in-the-story p, when it comes to cognition... more
    This essay argues that there are theoretical benefits to keeping distinct—more pervasively than the literature has done so far—the psychological states of imagining that p versus believing that in-the-story p, when it comes to cognition of fiction and other forms of narrative. Positing both in the minds of a story’s audience helps explain the full range of reactions characteristic of story consumption. This distinction also has interesting conceptual and explanatory dimensions that haven’t been carefully observed, and the two mental state types make distinct contributions to generating emotional responses to stories as well. Finally, the differences between the mental states illuminate how a given story can be both shared with others and at the same time experienced as personal.
    DOI: 10.1007/s11098-020-01449-4
    Volume: 178
    Page Numbers: 639-664
    Publication Date: 2021
    Publication Name: Philosophical Studies
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    Does "Think" Mean the Same Thing as "Believe"? Linguistic Insights Into Religious Cognitionmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    When someone says she believes that God exists, is she expressing the same kind of mental state as when she says she thinks that a lake bigger than Lake Michigan exists⎯i.e., does she refer to the same kind of cognitive attitude in both... more
    When someone says she believes that God exists, is she expressing the same kind of mental state as when she says she thinks that a lake bigger than Lake Michigan exists⎯i.e., does she refer to the same kind of cognitive attitude in both cases? Using evidence from linguistic corpora (Study 1) and behavioral experiments (Studies 2-4), the current work provides evidence that individuals typically use the word “believe” more in conjunction with statements about religious credences and “think” more in conjunction with factual statements, pointing to two different understandings of claims made with these two terms. These patterns do not appear to reflect low-level differences based on the amount of consensus surrounding a particular claim, the extent to which the truth of a particular claim is known to the participant, or linguistic differences between religious and factual statements. We discuss implications of these findings for religious cognition (e.g., as supporting the theory that religious credences are qualitatively distinct from factual beliefs) as well as cognitive processes more broadly. Finally, we relate the present findings to prior theoretical work on differences between factual belief and religious credence.
    DOI: 10.1037/rel0000238
    Issue: 3
    Volume: 13
    Page Numbers: 287-297
    Publication Date: 2021
    Publication Name: Psychology of Religion and Spirituality
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    The Factual Belief Fallacymore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    This paper explains a fallacy that often arises in theorizing about human minds. I call it the Factual Belief Fallacy. The Fallacy, roughly, involves drawing conclusions about human psychology that improperly ignore the large backgrounds... more
    This paper explains a fallacy that often arises in theorizing about human minds. I call it the Factual Belief Fallacy. The Fallacy, roughly, involves drawing conclusions about human psychology that improperly ignore the large backgrounds of mostly accurate factual beliefs people have. The Factual Belief Fallacy has led to significant mistakes in both philosophy of mind and cognitive science of religion. Avoiding it helps us better see the difference between factual belief and religious credence; seeing that difference in turn enables us to pose interesting normative questions about various mental states labeled "belief." [NOTE: The copy posted here is a penultimate proof. Please see the final published version for quotation purposes.]
    Publication Name: Contemporary Pragmatism
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    Seeking the Supernatural: The Interactive Religious Experience Model [target article with commentaries and response]more
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    We develop a new model of how human agency-detection capacities and other socio-cognitive biases are involved in forming religious beliefs. Crucially, we distinguish general religious beliefs (such as *God exists*) from personal religious... more
    We develop a new model of how human agency-detection capacities and other socio-cognitive biases are involved in forming religious beliefs. Crucially, we distinguish general religious beliefs (such as *God exists*) from personal religious beliefs that directly refer to the agent holding the belief or to her peripersonal time and space (such as *God appeared to _me_ last night*). On our model, people acquire general religious beliefs mostly from their surrounding culture; however, people use agency-intuitions and other low-level experiences to form personal religious beliefs. We call our model the Interactive Religious Experience Model (IREM). IREM inverts received versions of Hyperactive Agency-Detection Device Theory (HADD Theory): instead of saying that agency-intuitions are major causes of religious belief in general, IREM says that general belief in supernatural agents causes people to seek situations that trigger agency-intuitions and other experiences, since these enable one to form personal beliefs about those agents. In addition to developing this model, we (1) present empirical and conceptual difficulties with received versions of HADD Theory, (2) explain how IREM incorporates philosophical work on indexical belief, (3) relate IREM to existing anthropological and psychological research, and (4) propose future empirical research programs based on IREM.
    More Info: 2018
    Publication Date: 2019
    Publication Name: Religion, Brain & Behavior
    Research Interests:
    Religion, Christianity, Sociology of Religion, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, and 54 more
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    Two Paradigms for Religious Representation: The Physicist and the Playground (A Reply to Levy)more
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    In an earlier issue, I argue (2014) that psychology and epistemology should distinguish religious credence from factual belief. These are distinct cognitive attitudes. Levy (2017) rejects this distinction, arguing that both religious and... more
    In an earlier issue, I argue (2014) that psychology and epistemology should distinguish religious credence from factual belief. These are distinct cognitive attitudes. Levy (2017) rejects this distinction, arguing that both religious and factual “beliefs” are subject to “shifting” on the basis of fluency and “intuitiveness.” Levy’s theory, however, (1) is out of keeping with much research in cognitive science of religion and (2) misrepresents the notion of factual belief employed in my theory. So his claims don’t undermine my distinction. I conclude by suggesting some approaches to empirically testing our views.
    Journal Name: Cognition 164, pp. 206 - 211
    Publication Date: 2017
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    Do religious "beliefs" respond to evidence?more
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    Some examples suggest that religious credences (or “beliefs”) respond to evidence. Other examples suggest they are wildly unresponsive. So the examples taken together suggest there is a puzzle about whether descriptive religious attitudes... more
    Some examples suggest that religious credences (or “beliefs”) respond to evidence. Other examples suggest they are wildly unresponsive. So the examples taken together suggest there is a puzzle about whether descriptive religious attitudes respond to evidence or not. I argue for a solution to this puzzle according to which religious credences are characteristically not responsive to evidence; that is, they do not tend to be extinguished by evidence contrary to them. And when they appear to be responsive, it is because the agents with those credences are playing what I call The Evidence Game, which in fundamental ways resembles the games of make-believe described by Kendall Walton’s (1990) theory of make-believe.
    More Info: forthcoming
    Journal Name: Philosophical Explorations, vol. 20 Issue sup1: 52-72
    Publication Date: 2017
    Research Interests:
    Religion, Christianity, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, and 42 more
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    Interpreting Intuitionsmore
    by Marcus McGahhey and Neil Van Leeuwen
    We argue that many intuitions do not have conscious propositional contents. In particular, many of the intuitions had in response to philosophical thought experiments, like Gettier cases, do not have such contents. They are more like... more
    We argue that many intuitions do not have conscious propositional contents. In particular, many of the intuitions had in response to philosophical thought experiments, like Gettier cases, do not have such contents. They are more like hunches, urgings, murky feelings, and twinges. Our view thus goes against the received view of intuitions in philosophy, which we call Mainstream Propositionalism. Our positive view is that many thought-experimental intuitions are conscious, spontaneous, non-theoretical, non-propositional psychological states that often motivate belief revision, but they require interpretation, in light of background beliefs, before a subject can form a propositional judgment as a consequence of them. We call our view Interpretationalism. We argue (i) that Interpretationalism avoids the problems that beset Mainstream Propositionalism and (ii) that our view meshes well with empirical results in contemporary cognitive science.
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    Beyond Fakers and Fanatics: a Reply to Maarten Boudry and Jerry Coynemore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    Maarten Boudry and Jerry Coyne have written a piece, forthcoming in Philosophical Psychology, called “Disbelief in Belief,” in which they criticize my recent paper “Religious credence is not factual belief” (2014, Cognition 133). Here I... more
    Maarten Boudry and Jerry Coyne have written a piece, forthcoming in Philosophical Psychology, called “Disbelief in Belief,” in which they criticize my recent paper “Religious credence is not factual belief” (2014, Cognition 133). Here I respond to their criticisms, the thrust of which is that we shouldn’t distinguish religious credence from factual belief, contrary to what I say. I respond that their picture of religious psychology undermines our ability to distinguish common religious people from fanatics. My response will appear in the same issue as their paper.
    More Info: forthcoming
    Publication Name: Philosophical Psychology
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    Imagination and Actionmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    This entry elucidates causal and constitutive roles that various forms of imagining play in human action. Imagination influences more kinds of action than just pretend play. I distinguish different senses of the terms “imagining” and... more
    This entry elucidates causal and constitutive roles that various forms of imagining play in human action. Imagination influences more kinds of action than just pretend play. I distinguish different senses of the terms “imagining” and “imagination”: imagistic imagining, propositional imagining, and constructive imagining. Each variety of imagining makes its own characteristic contributions to action. Imagistic imagining can structure bodily movement. Propositional imagining interacts with desires to motivate pretend play and mimetic expressive action. And constructive imagination generates representations of possibilities and actions on the basis of which we choose what to do.
    More Info: forthcoming
    Publisher: Routledge
    Publication Name: The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination, ed. Amy Kind
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    Religious Credence is not Factual Beliefmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    I argue that psychology and epistemology should posit distinct cognitive attitudes of religious credence and factual belief, which have different etiologies and different cognitive and behavioral effects. I support this claim by... more
    I argue that psychology and epistemology should posit distinct cognitive attitudes of religious credence and factual belief, which have different etiologies and different cognitive and behavioral effects. I support this claim by presenting a range of empirical evidence that religious cognitive attitudes tend to lack properties characteristic of factual belief, just as attitudes like hypothesis, fictional imagining, and assumption for the sake of argument generally lack such properties. Furthermore, religious credences have distinctive properties of their own. To summarize: factual beliefs (i) are practical setting independent, (ii) cognitively govern other attitudes, and (iii) are evidentially vulnerable. By way of contrast, religious credences (a) have perceived normative orientation, (b) are susceptible to free elaboration, and (c) are vulnerable to special authority. This theory provides a framework for future research in the epistemology and psychology of religious credence.
    Publication Date: 2014
    Publication Name: Cognition
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    The Meanings of "Imagine" Part II: Attitude and Actionmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    I investigate, in Part II, different approaches to the question of what makes imagining different from belief. I find that the sentiment-based approach of David Hume falls short, as does the teleological approach, once advocated by David... more
    I investigate, in Part II, different approaches to the question of what makes imagining different from belief. I find that the sentiment-based approach of David Hume falls short, as does the teleological approach, once advocated by David Velleman. I then consider whether the inferential properties of beliefs and imaginings differ. Beliefs, I claim, exhibit an anti-symmetric inferential governance over imaginings: they are the background that makes inference from one imagining to the other possible; the reverse is not true, and this allows us to distinguish the two attitudes. I then go on to consider the action theory of imagining and the role that imaginings play in the generation of emotion. I weigh, in this connection, the strengths and weaknesses of both the i-desire approach, which I call the Replacement Account, and the Direct Approach, which holds that imaginings can encode action-structuring properties and guide action directly—that is, without the mediation of belief or reasoning.
    Publication Date: 2014
    Publication Name: Philosophy Compass 9(11), 791-802
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    The Imaginative Agentmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    Imagination contributes to human agency in ways that haven't been well understood. I argue here that pathways from imagistic imagining to emotional engagement support three important agential capacities: 1. bodily preparedness for... more
    Imagination contributes to human agency in ways that haven't been well understood. I argue here that pathways from imagistic imagining to emotional engagement support three important agential capacities: 1. bodily preparedness for potential events in one's nearby environment; 2. evaluation of potential future action; and 3. empathy-based moral appraisal. Importantly, however, the kind of pathway in question (I-C-E-C: imagining-categorization-emotion-conceptualization) also enables engagement with fiction. So human enchantment with fiction is a consequence of imaginative pathways that make us the kind of agents we are. Finally, I use this approach to address imaginative resistance and the paradox of fiction.
    Publisher: Oxford University Press
    Publication Name: to appear in _Knowledge through Imagination_, eds. Amy Kind and Peter Kung
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    Review of Kristin Andrews' _Do Apes Read Minds? Toward a New Folk Psychology_more
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    Kristin Andrews proposes a new framework for thinking about folk psychology, which she calls Pluralistic Folk Psychology. Her approach emphasizes kinds of psychological prediction and explanation that don't rest on propositional attitude... more
    Kristin Andrews proposes a new framework for thinking about folk psychology, which she calls Pluralistic Folk Psychology. Her approach emphasizes kinds of psychological prediction and explanation that don't rest on propositional attitude attribution. Here I review some elements of her theory and find that, although the approach is very promising, there's still work to be done before we can conclude that the manners of prediction and explanation she identifies don't involve implicit propositional attitude attribution.
    More Info: Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2013 (4)
    Publication Date: Apr 2013
    Publication Name: Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
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    Imagination is where the Action ismore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    Imaginative representations are crucial to the generation of action--both pretense and plain action. But well-known theories of imagination on offer in the literature [1] fail to describe how perceptually-formatted imaginings (mental... more
    Imaginative representations are crucial to the generation of action--both pretense and plain action. But well-known theories of imagination on offer in the literature [1] fail to describe how perceptually-formatted imaginings (mental images) and motor imaginings function in the generation of action and [2] fail to recognize the important fact that spatially rich imagining can be integrated into one's perceptual manifold. In this paper, I present a theory of imagining that shows how spatially rich imagining functions in the generation of action. I also describe the imaginative structures behind two under-explored forms of action: semi-pretense and pretense layering. In addition, I suggest that my theory of imagining meshes better than the competitors with current work in cognitive and affective neuroscience.
    More Info: 2011 Journal of Philosophy 108(2): 55-77
    Publisher: cat.inist.fr
    Publication Date: Jan 1, 2011
    Publication Name: Journal of Philosophy
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    Religious Credence ≠ Factual Beliefmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    I argue that psychology and epistemology should posit distinct cognitive attitudes of religious credence and factual belief, which have different etiologies and different cognitive and behavioral effects. I support this claim by... more
    I argue that psychology and epistemology should posit distinct cognitive attitudes of religious credence and factual belief, which have different etiologies and different cognitive and behavioral effects. I support this claim by presenting contemporary and historical evidence that religious cognitive attitudes tend to lack properties characteristic of factual belief, just as attitudes like hypothesis, fictional imagining, and assumption for the sake of argument generally lack such properties. Furthermore, religious credences have distinctive properties of their own. To summarize: factual beliefs (i) are practical setting independent, (ii) cognitively govern other attitudes, and (iii) are evidentially vulnerable; by way of contrast, religious credences (a) have perceived moral orientation, (b) are susceptible to free elaboration, and (c) are vulnerable to moral authority. Having argued for this psychological theory, I propose the normative principles Balance and Immunity for evaluating which cognitive attitudes are or are not characteristic of a well-functioning cognitive system.
    More Info: Draft of June 13, 2012
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    Perry on Self-Knowledgemore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    The self-notion is an essential constituent of any self-belief or self-knowledge. But what is the self-notion? In this paper, I tie together several themes from the philosophy of John Perry to explain how he answers this question. The... more
    The self-notion is an essential constituent of any self-belief or self-knowledge. But what is the self-notion? In this paper, I tie together several themes from the philosophy of John Perry to explain how he answers this question. The self-notion is not just any notion that happens to be about the person in whose mind that notion appears, because it's possible to have ways of thinking about oneself that one doesn't realize are about oneself. Characterizing the self-notion properly (and hence self-belief and self-knowledge) requires understanding the role of that notion in tracking agent-relative information and motivating normally self-effecting ways of acting. [Note: the file here is an uncorrected proof. Please see the final book, now called _Identity, Language, and Mind_, for citation purposes.].
    More Info: 2012 in Identity, Language, and Mind: An Introduction to the Philosophy of John Perry. Albert Newen Raphael van Riel (ed.). CSLI Publications.
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    The Meanings of "Imagine" Part I: Constructive Imagination more
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    In this article (Part I), I first engage in some conceptual clarification of what the words "imagine," "imagining," and "imagination" can mean. Each has (i) a constructive sense, (ii) an attitudinal sense, and (iii) an imagistic sense.... more
    In this article (Part I), I first engage in some conceptual clarification of what the words "imagine," "imagining," and "imagination" can mean. Each has (i) a constructive sense, (ii) an attitudinal sense, and (iii) an imagistic sense. Keeping the senses straight in the course of cognitive theorizing is important for both psychology and philosophy. I then discuss the roles that perceptual memories, beliefs, and genre truth attitudes play in constructive imagination, or the capacity to generate novel representations that go well beyond what's prompted by one's immediate environment.
    More Info: 2013 Philosophy Compass 8(3): 220-30
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    Review of Robert Trivers' _The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life_ more
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    Here I review Robert Trivers' 2011 book _The Folly of Fools_, in which he advocates the evolutionary theory of deceit and self-deception that he pioneered in his famous preface to Richard Dawkins' _Selfish Gene_. Although the book... more
    Here I review Robert Trivers' 2011 book _The Folly of Fools_, in which he advocates the evolutionary theory of deceit and self-deception that he pioneered in his famous preface to Richard Dawkins' _Selfish Gene_. Although the book contains a wealth of interesting discussion on topics ranging from warfare to immunology, I find it lacking on two major fronts. First, it fails to give a proper argument for its central thesis--namely, that self-deception evolved to facilitate deception of others. Second, the book lacks conceptual clarity with respect to the focal term "self-deception."
    More Info: 2013
    Publication Name: Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 18(1-2): 146-151
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    Self-Deceptionmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    In this entry, I seek to show the interdependence of questions about self-deception in philosophy of mind, psychology, and ethics. I taxonomize solutions to the paradoxes of self-deception, present possible psychological mechanisms behind... more
    In this entry, I seek to show the interdependence of questions about self-deception in philosophy of mind, psychology, and ethics. I taxonomize solutions to the paradoxes of self-deception, present possible psychological mechanisms behind it, and highlight how different approaches to the philosophy of mind and psychology will affect how we answer important ethical questions. Is self-deception conducive to happiness? How does self-deception affect responsibility? Is there something intrinsically wrong with self-deception? The entry, on the one hand, is a tour of the literature; on the other, it is a case for more work that crosses traditional sub-disciplinary boundaries.
    More Info: 2103; International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Hugh LaFollette (ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
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    Self-Deception Won't Make You Happymore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    I argue here that self-deception is not conducive to happiness. There is a long train of thought in social psychology that seems to say that it is, but proper understanding of the data does not yield this conclusion. Illusion must be... more
    I argue here that self-deception is not conducive to happiness. There is a long train of thought in social psychology that seems to say that it is, but proper understanding of the data does not yield this conclusion. Illusion must be distinguished from mere imagining. Self-deception must be distinguished from self-inflation bias and from self-fulfilling belief. Once these distinctions are in place, the case for self-deception falls apart. Furthermore, by yielding false beliefs, self-deception undermines desire satisfaction. Finally, I argue for the positive view that *honest imagining* can yield the psychological benefits that others have claimed for self-deception.
    More Info: 2009 Social Theory and Practice 35 (1): 107-132
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    Sleights of mind: What the neuroscience of magic reveals about our brainsmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    The book I review, _Sleights of Mind_, aims to illuminate properties of perceptual systems by discussing human susceptibility to magical illusions. I describe how the authors use psychological principles to explain two tricks, spoon... more
    The book I review, _Sleights of Mind_, aims to illuminate properties of perceptual systems by discussing human susceptibility to magical illusions. I describe how the authors use psychological principles to explain two tricks, spoon bending and the Miser's Dream. I also argue that the book is congenial to the following view of illusions: susceptibility to illusion is the result of evolutionary trade-offs; perceptual systems must make assumptions in order to function at all, but susceptibility to illusion is the byproduct of such assumptions.
    More Info: 2011 Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 16(5) 473-478
    Publisher: Taylor & Francis
    Publication Date: Jan 1, 2011
    Publication Name: Cognitive Neuropsychiatry
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    The Motivational Role of Beliefmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    This paper claims that the standard characterization of the motivational role of belief should be supplemented. Beliefs do not only, jointly with desires, cause and rationalize actions that will satisfy the desires, if the beliefs are... more
    This paper claims that the standard characterization of the motivational role of belief should be supplemented. Beliefs do not only, jointly with desires, cause and rationalize actions that will satisfy the desires, if the beliefs are true; beliefs are also the practical ground of other cognitive attitudes, like imagining, which means beliefs determine whether and when one acts with those other attitudes as the cognitive inputs into choices and practical reasoning. In addition to arguing for this thesis, I take issue with Velleman's argument that belief and imagining cannot be distinguished on the basis of motivational role.
    More Info: 2009 Philosophical Papers 38 (2): 219 - 246
    Publisher: Taylor & Francis
    Publication Date: Jan 1, 2009
    Publication Name: Philosophical Papers
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    Finite rational self-deceiversmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    I raise three puzzles concerning self-deception: (i) a conceptual paradox, (ii) a dilemma about how to understand human cognitive evolution, and (iii) a tension between the fact of self-deception and Davidson’s interpretive view. I... more
    I raise three puzzles concerning self-deception: (i) a conceptual paradox, (ii) a dilemma about how to understand human cognitive evolution, and (iii) a tension between the fact of self-deception and Davidson’s interpretive view. I advance solutions to the first two and lay a groundwork for addressing the third. The capacity for self-deception, I argue, is a spandrel, in Gould’s and Lewontin’s sense, of other mental traits, i.e., a structural byproduct. The irony is that the mental traits of which self-deception is a spandrel/byproduct are themselves rational.
    More Info: 2008 Philosophical Studies 139 (2):191 - 208
    Publisher: Springer
    Publication Date: Jan 1, 2008
    Publication Name: Philosophical Studies
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    The Product of Self-Deceptionmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    I raise the question of what cognitive attitude self-deception brings about. That is: what is the product of self-deception? Robert Audi and Georges Rey have argued that self-deception does not bring about belief in the usual sense, but... more
    I raise the question of what cognitive attitude self-deception brings about. That is: what is the product of self-deception? Robert Audi and Georges Rey have argued that self-deception does not bring about belief in the usual sense, but rather “avowal” or “avowed belief.” That means a tendency to affirm verbally (both privately and publicly) that lacks normal belief-like connections to non-verbal actions. I contest their view by discussing cases in which the product of self-deception is implicated in action in a way that exemplifies the motivational role of belief. Furthermore, by applying independent criteria of what it is for a mental state to be a belief, I defend the more intuitive view that being self-deceived that p entails believing that p. Beliefs (i) are the default for action relative to other cognitive attitudes (such as imagining and hypothesis) and (ii) have cognitive governance over the other cognitive attitudes. I explicate these two relations and argue that they obtain for the product of self-deception.
    More Info: 2007 Erkenntnis 67: 419-437
    Publisher: Springer
    Publication Date: Jan 1, 2007
    Publication Name: Erkenntnis
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    The Spandrels of Self-Deception: Prospects for a Biological Theory of a Mental Phenomenonmore
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    Three puzzles about self-deception make this mental phenomenon an intriguing explanatory target. The first relates to how to define it without paradox; the second is about how to make sense of self-deception in light of the interpretive... more
    Three puzzles about self-deception make this mental phenomenon an intriguing explanatory target. The first relates to how to define it without paradox; the second is about how to make sense of self-deception in light of the interpretive view of the mental that has become widespread in philosophy; and the third concerns why it exists at all. In this paper I address the first and third puzzles. First, I define self-deception. Second, I criticize Robert Trivers' attempt to use adaptionist evolutionary psychology to solve the third puzzle (existence). Third, I sketch a theory to replace that of Trivers. Self-deception is not an adaptation, but a spandrel in the sense that Gould and Lewontin give the term: a byproduct of other features of human (cognitive) architecture.
    More Info: 2007 Philosophical Psychology 20(3): 329-348
    Publisher: Taylor & Francis
    Publication Date: Jan 1, 2007
    Publication Name: Philosophical Psychology
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    How Conservatives and Liberals Watch 'I Am Cait'more
    by Andrew Vierra and Neil Van Leeuwen
    Published in The Conversation Available at https://theconversation.com/how-conservatives-and-liberals-watch-i-am-cait-44877 Recommended citation: Vierra, Andrew, Jared Riggs, and Neil Van Leeuwen. August 2 2015. 'How Conservatives and... more
    Published in The Conversation
    Available at https://theconversation.com/how-conservatives-and-liberals-watch-i-am-cait-44877
    Recommended citation:
    Vierra, Andrew, Jared Riggs, and Neil Van Leeuwen. August 2 2015. 'How Conservatives and Liberals Watch 'I Am Cait'. The Conversation.
    In this article, we argue that the political divide in the debate over whether someone can be transgender is best explained by identity-protective cognition.  Liberals support transgender individuals because they favor an egalitarian society, and conservatives reject transgender individuals because they favor a hierarchical society.  We conclude that if the debate is going to make any real progress, both sides need to recognize that their position is about more than whether or not someone is really a man or a woman.
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    Talks
    What is Belief?more
    by Neil Van Leeuwen
    This is an interdisciplinary virtual talk series on the nature of belief that is free and open to the public. Head to this URL for links to each live session:

    https://cognition.princeton.edu/belief
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