Recursive misperception of others’ intentions can erase objective truth from a social situation

Evidence

An impressive illustration of limitation (d), and of the way in which it can go beyond purely cognitive limitations, is provided by the history of conspiracy in post-war France (Williams 1970). The baroque structure of these intrigues, in which an agent might act to create the impression that a second agent was acting so as to create the impression that the first agent was engaged in a conspiracy (for instance, that one), must surely have resulted in a situation in which no one really understood what anyone was doing; and this lack of understanding will also have affected the situation to be understood. Since such a situation is structured by the agents’ intentions, and their intentions are conditioned by their increasingly confused grasp of others’ intentions, there comes a point at which there is no truth of the matter about what they are doing. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 113

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that nested deception reaches a point where ‘there is no truth of the matter’ about what agents are doing is philosophically profound—constructivist epistemology applied to intentional action itself.
• XREF: Mirrors how in Saramago, once everyone is blind, accusations and counter-accusations of feigned blindness create situations where no one can verify any claim about who really sees. — connects to: Rational inference from others’ actions alone can push a whole group wrong — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False…, 286; Shared social reinforcement amplifies irrational rationalization of mistaken beliefs — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 88
• SEED: The idea that a situation structured by mutual misinterpretation can outrun any ‘truth of the matter’ is a provocative essay on epistemology of social facts.