Amerjit asked:

Did any philosophers past or present deal with the nature of disguise, in relation to people's
personalities, and how might this help or hinder people to cope with every day life. What do you
think?

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There are a number of ways one could think about this interesting thought.

Freud thought that there is a part of the human soul called the 'id' in which basic instincts (love and
aggression) jostle with no sense of value. The part of us which is in touch with the outside world (the
ego) aims at survival and selects or rejects some of the id's demands accordingly. The superego is
the deposit of parental influences and exercises further control over the id by banning socially
unacceptable practices.

The unconscious thus contains repressed experiences which often manifest themselves in neuroses.
So there is a possible sense in which a personality is already a form of disguise. Conditioning and the
unconscious rub against each other and our personalities are a troubled confusion. The idea here is
that this causes us problems (hence the popularity of psychoanalysis that has gained so much
currency since Freud).

An existentialist like Sartre would agree that disguise is bad. He criticises people who live in 'bad
faith'. Once you see yourself as a 'being approaching death' (as Heidegger puts it) you are faced with
the task of creating your own life as something for which you are fundamentally responsible.
Disguising yourself would therefore not help you.

Inscribed at the seat of the oracle in Delphi was the phrase 'Know Thyself'; according to Hans Kung,
this can be the basis for the 'reconstruction of a personality'.

Adam Gatward

I don't think that philosophers have discussed disguise. The closest concept would be Sartre's "bad
faith".

As an example of bad faith, Sartre describes a waiter whose behaviour is like a parody of a waiter.
His behaviour is so waiter-like that he appears to be acting — he isn't being himself but being what he
thinks a waiter should be. This person is pretending he is a waiter, and this is to act in bad faith
because he isn't a waiter. He is a free man and could choose to do something else, but is unable to
face up to his freedom. Sartre thought man cannot face the freedom and contingency of his
existence. To believe that it is your purpose in life to fulfil a role, is a strategy for avoiding the feeling
that existence is futile.

The waiter syndrome is a common one and may help people to cope with everyday life. But it is
insecure. At any moment one might come to feel the falsity of role-playing and recognise the ultimate
futility of life and the consequence may be emotional or mental breakdown — a collapse into
"anguish, forlornness, despair". To role-play is a dangerous disguise. It is to pretend to be what you
are not and to conceal from yourself your true condition.

Rachel Browne