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Reflexive Paradoxes By T. S. Champlin London: Routledge, 1988, viii + 235 pp., £30.00

The intention behind this entertaining book is to study a variety of 'reflexive paradoxes' with a view to seeing how they are related and what common elements there might be in their solutions. The book begins with a discussion of the paradox of self-deception which, Champlin tells us, was the starting point of his interest in reflexive paradoxes, and moves on to discussions of 'Self-contradiction', 'For its Own Sake' (and Kant) 'Self-movers' (in Aquinas, Aristotle and Plato), 'Self-generation of Life', 'Reflexives and Solo Performances', 'Self-reference' (including a discussion of the Liar and the first person pronoun and in particular the views of Anscombe and Evans), 'Suicide and Self-killing', 'Self-membership', 'Self-evidence' and 'Self-knowledge'. An ever present fallacy underlying perplexity about these topics is, Champlin tells us, 'the fallacy of isolationism', which is the idea that a reflexive form must strictly speaking report an activity done in complete isolation, without any outside help. This idea is most clearly and carefully explained in the discussion on selfdeception which does seem in general to be the most interesting of Champlin's chapters. Champlin begins this chapter by distinguishing deception from deceit and hence self-deception from self-deceit. But not every case of deceiving oneself, Champlin argues, is a case of self-deception. The extra ingredient which makes the difference is 'dishonesty with oneself. What is dishonest about the self-deceiver is that he erects a deceptive screen of evasions, excuses, halftruths and rationalisations between himself and some things he clearly knows to be true on the one hand and the whole of the truth on the other. The selfdeceiver is like someone who knows that there are unread legal documents in a trunk in his attic which would make troubling reading but who prefers to let them lie undisturbed. In the self-deceiver's metaphysical attic truth lies concealed in its locked box, but although he possesses the key he gives bad reasons for not turning the lock and looking inside. Hence the self-deceiver does not know the whole truth about the matter in hand and so there is no need to represent him (as one who succumbed to the isolationist fallacy would) as persuading himself to believe what he knows is not so.