Ian Hacking proposes that ways of talking about autistic experience can shape, or even transform, what it is like to be autistic. I explore the grounds for two nonexclusive interpretations of this thesis. The informative interpretation holds that, because nonautistics cannot read mental states into autistic behaviour as they normally do with one another, autistic self‐narratives give nonautistics unique insights into what it is like to be autistic. This in turn affects how nonautistics interact with autistic individuals, enriching their social (...) environment in various ways. The more radical, transformative interpretation holds that autistic experience is itself moulded under the influence of developing a language‐game for talking about autistic experience. I endorse both theses, albeit with some cautionary remarks. (shrink)

Autism as a polysemic and dynamic phenomenonIn this paper we demonstrate how the dominant discourse about autism, that stresses biological explanations, has certain ethical implications. On the one hand, such discourse is exculpating. In autism’s history, genetic explanations helped removing the blame from so-called refrigerator mothers. In present-day diagnostic practice, the idea of having a biological diagnosis helps people and their parents see beyond blame and guilt. On the other hand, a simplistic approach to biology risks neglecting the experiences and (...) stories of autistic people in favour of finding causes and cures. In our own research we have noticed that narratives of autistic people explore an alternative autism discourse, one that demonstrate multiple meanings and dynamics of autism. We demonstrate, using the theories of Georges Canguilhem and the science of epigenetics, how dynamic models of life and mind offer the possibility to look at autism differently. Rather than seeing autistic people as people with fundamental flaws in their genes or software faults in their brains that have to be explained, autism appears as a phenomenon that exists in interaction with the context, as a meaningful reaction to the environment. (shrink)