Syllabus Showcase: Philosophy on the Spectrum: The Philosophy of Autism and Autistic Philosophy, Travis LaCroix

Some have suggested that the “very idea of an autistic person is a philosophical one” (Murray 2011, 9) and that the “subject of autism is rich with philosophical possibilities” (Anderson and Cushing 2013, 3). At the same time, however, “the philosophy of autism is not (or not yet) a subfield of philosophy” (Bölte and Richman 2019, 4).

As part of a burgeoning philosophical research program in autism, I taught an undergraduate/graduate-level seminar on The Philosophy of Autism and Autistic Philosophy at Dalhousie University (Fall 2022).

The Course Structure

There is a great amount of stigma and misinformation surrounding the topic of autism. To curtail potentially misleading assumptions about autism for students entering this course, the first part of the seminar began with a series of short lectures on the History of Autism. The history of autism is genuinely incredible—in the sense of “impossible to believe”—and some awareness of this history is useful to contextualize the more credible-sounding misinformation that people spread about autism today. Although this is an incomplete (and falsely linear) historical narrative, these lectures were intended to provide some socio-historical overview of autism:

1. Autism Today (DSM 5)
2. Diagnosis and “Discovery” (1910-1940, DSM I)
3. Refrigerator Mothers (1940-1970, DSM II)
4. The Mothers Strike Back! (1960-1990, DSM III)
5. Treatment and Education (1960-1990, DSM III-R)
6. Awareness, the “Spectrum”, & the “Autism Wars” (1980-2010, DSM IV)
7. Epidemics and Vaccines (1990-2010, DSM IV-TR)
8. Self-advocacy, Autistic Voices, and Neurodiversity (1990-Present, DSM 5)

We examined how the definition of autism (as a diagnosis) has changed from its “discovery” in the early 20^th century as a “rare form” of childhood schizophrenia to the rise and fall of Asperger’s syndrome to the present-day autism spectrum. Each lecture began with a vignette of an autistic person in history. The required readings for these first few weeks were not philosophical texts but writing, blog posts, videos, poems, etc., created by autistic authors. Between the lectures, we had in-class activities—including examining autism screening questionnaires (like the autism quotient) and watching fictional representations of autism in popular media to discuss whether they were good representations.

The remainder of the semester began with a (highly critical) discussion of the theory-of-mind-deficit explanation of autism. This was important to address early on because much philosophical work that engages with autism takes for granted the (false) assumption that autistics lack a theory of mind; this work then draws out the (usually normative) logical implications of this assumption. As a result, philosophically-focused research on autism can perpetuate harmful misinformation about autism and autistics. In some cases, as we discussed in the seminar, philosophy has openly advanced novel views about autism that have led to the further dehumanization of autistics—for example, that autistics lack self-knowledge, autistics are not moral persons or members of the moral community, that “living an autistic life is not as good a human life as one that is non-autistic”, or that autistics are incapable of being members of a community (of autistics).

Rather than teaching how to do philosophy well by showing students the best philosophical papers and then having them try to replicate that (whatever “that” is), I also like to assign demonstrably bad readings so they can learn how to avoid doing philosophy badly.

The remainder of the course was split into two parts: the philosophy of autism and autistic philosophy. The former examines philosophical approaches toward autism, whereas the latter seeks to bring neurodiverse and autistic perspectives to bear on philosophical theories. For example, suppose a philosophical view of “the good life” gives some set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a life’s being good. A philosophy of autism approach might find that autistics fail to satisfy those conditions, thus concluding that autistics cannot live a good life. The autistic philosophy approach, instead, assumes (based on empirical evidence) that autistics can live a good life, thus concluding the set of necessary and sufficient conditions given by the philosophical theory is bad.

I originally intended to pick three philosophically-interesting topics to discuss for each section. However, while researching, I came up with roughly 20 possible topics, all of which were interesting (in my view). So, instead of choosing the topics myself, the class voted on which topics they wanted to discuss. Ultimately, the “philosophy of autism” component of the course consisted of the following topics (see syllabus for discussion questions and associated readings under each topic):

1. Empathy and Moral Emotions
2. The Philosophy of Language
3. Sex, Gender, and Misogyny

In the “autistic philosophy” component, the students chose the following topics:

1. (Neuro-)Queerness and Social Norms
2. Communication and Meaning
3. Looping Effects and Autistic Kinds

Following Lewis (1969), I take it that (part of) the profession of philosophers is “to challenge platitudes that others accept without thinking twice” (1). The overarching theme of the semester was to critically examine and challenge philosophical (and philosophy-adjacent) research on autism while gaining a deeper knowledge of autism from an autistic perspective.

The Assignments

Although it was not graded, students completed a pre-assessment survey during the first meeting to measure their current background knowledge about autism. Several of the factual questions in the survey were taken from a UK study conducted with 250 medical students. At the end of the course, the students completed a “post-assessment survey”, which included a written-response opportunity to reflect on how or whether their conception of autism changed over the semester. Responses included how student beliefs transformed about stimming, social behavior, and how autistics interact with their environment. Students expressed surprise about how the negative treatment of autistics in society has evolved (not changed) over time—something explicitly informed by the historical context offered in Part 1.

For graded assignments, I consider what useful skills students can practice. For example, the final paper graduate students submit for the class is effectively built around submission to a professional conference, like the Canadian or American Philosophical Associations. In addition, graduate students could choose three different “professionalization” assignments, including practicing writing and presenting a conference commentary on an assigned paper, writing a referee report, writing an op-ed piece or blog post, or giving a conference-style presentation on their final research paper. Graduate students could also suggest an alternative assignment to practice skills they think would be relevant.

Undergraduate students were introduced to the research process by finding and submitting a paper they believed would be a good fit for a future offering of this same course. They had to present a summary of this paper to their colleagues in class and submit a report to me arguing for its inclusion in a future syllabus. Every student contributed something that would be well worth including in a future course and would add to the diversity of the syllabus readings.

Guiding Principles for a Course on Autism

In her book Neuroqueer Heresies, Nick Walker describes a set of “guiding principles for a course on autism” to ensure that the course remains grounded in the neurodiversity paradigm—which asserts that neurodiversity (like biodiversity) is valuable for human flourishing—and the social model of disability. These principles also help avoid inadvertently reinforcing the attitudes of the medical model of disability and the “pathology paradigm”—which asserts that there is one “normal” way for human brains to function, and divergence from this implies pathology.

1. To hell with “balance”.
2. The instructor must be autistic.
3. The instructor must participate in autistic culture, community, and resistance.
4. Autistic voices must be central.
5. Truth is where it is.
6. The instructor must model the accommodation of neurodivergence.
7. The instructor must model and invite the embodied expression of neurodivergence.

I was not aware of these principles when I designed the syllabus, but I generally agree with them. In the future, I would strive to make the syllabus more autistic.

World Autism Awareness Acceptance Day

Given the timing of the publication of this showcase, it is worth noting that April 2 is World Autism Acceptance Day, which is observed by United Nations member states. Rather than the UN goal of increasing “awareness” of autism, some autistic self-advocates prefer the term “Autistic Acceptance Day” to promote overcoming anti-autism prejudice. I do not have any recommendations as to how best to do this. Still, in the context of the philosophy of autism, a start includes reading the work of autistic scholars—many excellent such works are listed in the syllabus.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Emma McClure for simulating a normal audience and to Arianna Falbo for helpful comments.

The Syllabus Showcase of the APA Blog is designed to share insights into the syllabi of philosophy educators. We include syllabi in their original, unedited format that showcase a wide variety of philosophy classes. We would love for you to be a part of this project. Please contact Series Editor, Dr. Brynn Welch via bwelch@uab.edu or Editor of the Teaching Beat, Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall via sabrinamisirhiralall@apaonline.org with potential submissions. 

Travis LaCroix

Travis LaCroix (@travislacroix) is an assistant professor (ethics and computer science) in the department of philosophy at Dalhousie University. He received his PhD from the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine. His recent research centres on AI ethics (particularly value alignment problems) and language origins.