Online research in philosophy

Autism, particularly its moderate to severe forms, has prompted considerable scientific study and clinical involvement because the associated behaviours imply disconnections with valued features of a ‘good’ life, such as close relationships, enjoyment, and adaptability. Proposed causes of autism involve potent philosophical concepts including consciousness, identity, mind, and relationality. The concept of autistic integrity is used by Barnbaum in The Ethics of Autism: Among Them, But Not of Them to help provide moral justification to stop efforts to cure adults with autism, especially if the cause is presumed to be a lack of a theory of mind.1 This article has two goals: (1) to apply four familiar definitions or characterizations of integrity to the case of moderate to severe autism, and (2) to examine whether autistic integrity does provide the moral justification Barnbaum seeks.

Substantial research efforts have been devoted to developing a cure for autism, but some advocates of people with autism claim that these efforts are misguided and even harmful. They claim that there is nothing wrong with people with autism, so there is nothing to cure. Others argue that autism is a serious and debilitating disorder and that a cure for autism would be a wonderful medical breakthrough. Our goal in this essay is to evaluate what assumptions underlie each of these positions. We evaluate the arguments made on each side, reject those that are implausible and then highlight the key assumptions of those that remain.

The number of people diagnosed with autism has risen exponentially in recent years. Are the diagnostic labels currently in use adequate to describe such a vast range of symptoms? Should we reconsider the appropriateness of the language we use to discuss autism? A mother of two autistic sons describes what the autism label has meant for her and her family.

This paper problematizes contemporary cultural understandings of autism. We make use of the developmental psychology concepts of ‘Theory of Mind’ and ‘mindblindness’ to uncover the meaning of autism as expressed in these concepts. Our concern is that autism is depicted as a puzzle and that this depiction governs not only the way Western culture treats autism but also the way in which it governs everyday interactions with autistic people. Moreover, we show how the concepts of Theory of Mind and mindblindness require autism to be a puzzle in the first place. Rather than treat autism as a puzzle that must be solved, we treat autism as a teacher and thus as having something valuable to contribute toward an understanding of the inherent partiality and uncertainty of human communication and collective life.

This article suggests that an account of pretence based on the idea of shared intentionality can be of help in understanding autism. In autism, there seems to be a strong link between being able to engage in pretend play, understanding the minds of others and having adequate access to own mental states. Since one of the first behavioral manifestations of autism is the lack of pretend play, it therefore seems natural to investigate pretence in order to identify the nature of the central impairment in question. In mainstream theories, this has been identified as an impaired ‘theory of mind module’ or ‘mentalizing’ capacities. This paper points to some difficulties encountered by such accounts and – by drawing on research by Tomasello and Rakoczy – seeks to develop an alternative account of pretence and social cognition.

In this chapter I defend the mind-blindness theory of autism, by showing how it can accommodate data which might otherwise appear problematic for it. Specifically, I show how it can explain the fact that autistic children rarely engage in spontaneous pretend-play, and also how it can explain the executive-function deficits which are characteristic of the syndrome. I do this by emphasising what I take to be an entailment of the mind-blindness theory, that autistic subjects have difficulties of access to their own mental states, as well as to the mental states of other people.

Most scientists and theorists concerned with the problem of consciousness focus on our consciousness of the physical world (our sensations, feelings, and awareness). In this paper I consider our consciousness of the mental world (our thoughts about thoughts, intentions, wishes, and emotions).The argument is made that these are two distinct forms of consciousness, the evidence for this deriving from studies of autism. Autism is a severe childhood psychiatric condition in which individuals may be conscious of the physical world but not of the mental world. Relevant experimental evidence is described, including some recent neuroimaging studies pointing towards the neural basis of our consciousness of the mental.