I finished a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Auckland under the supervision of John Bishop and Fred Kroon. Jordi Fernández (University of Adelaide) and Andy Egan (Rutgers) examined my dissertation.
Before Auckland, Astana, and Al Ain, I lived in Belgrade, Serbia. I have an Honours degree in Theology from the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Theology, and an MA in Philosophy from the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy.
I worked as an Assistant Professor at Nazarbayev University (Kazakstan) for four and a half years full time, as a lecturer and tutor at the University of Auckland for four years part-time, and as a high-school teacher in Belgrade for eight years full-time.
Current Research
My current research lies at the intersection of philosophy of mind, cognitive science (experimental philosophy), philosophy of language, and philosophy of deception. I propose and defend novel theories of lying (the ‘Violation’ account) and deception (the ‘Manipulativist’ view) that, I argue, not only explain general instances of lying and deception better than its rivals but also generate a much less problematic theory of self-deception.
According to my Violation account, liars need not intend to deceive their addressee and that they may lie by asserting what they believe is true. What constitutes lying is deliberately representing an illegitimate assertion as legitimate. In this way, liars violate the norms of assertion (their assertion is illegitimate) and of sincerity (they present it as legitimate), thus the name ‘Violation.’
According to my Manipulativist account of deception, deception is constituted not by misleading the victim in order to receive practical benefit, as standardly thought; rather, deception is constituted by covert manipulation of the victim on part of the deceiver.
Past Research
In my PhD thesis, I provide an innovative theory capable of accommodating the most problematic cases of self-deception without recourse to dividing the mind.
There are three general approaches to self-deception. Deflationary: a person performs an intentional action as a result of which they end up deceived – namely, with a false or epistemically unjustified belief – but they did not act intending to deceive themself. Traditional (modelled on other-deception): a person intends to deceive themself and acts on their intention successfully. Revisionist: a person is self-deceived when they holds a false belief about themself (the self is the object of deception, not the deceiver).
The deflationary account proves to be unsatisfactory because it places the irrationality of self-deception into the third-person perspective and because it does not understand self-deception as involving one’s insincerity towards oneself. Revisionism is dangerously close to conflating false self-knowledge with self-deception. Traditionalism gives us the most natural way of modelling self-deception but it, nevertheless, seems paradoxical – since, in order to succeed, the self-deceiver must perform the apparently impossible feat of intentionally making themself believe as true what they believe is false while hiding this intention form themself.
I rehabilitate traditionalism about self-deception by claiming that this problem results from an inadequate understanding of lying and interpersonal deception applied to self-deception. Modelling self-deception on other-deception is not paradoxical: it does not entail that self-deceivers must intentionally make themselves believe as true what they already believe is false. I also modify deflationism to resolve its shortcomings. These improved traditional and deflationary conceptions can explain all cases of self-deception. I conclude, thus, that there is no reason to be a revisionist about self-deception.