Major
Philosophy
Anticipated Graduation Year
2025
Access Type
Restricted Access
Abstract
Traditional views of autism define autism by its socio-communicative deficits, furthermore establishing that autistic agents are incapable of Theory of Mind and empathizing with other agents. Despite this, first-person accounts of autism state that autistic agents do experience empathy. This conflict calls for a reconceptualization of empathy to better account for autistics experiences that it typically discounts.In reimagining empathy as a dialogical empathic process, I hope to disentangle and delineate areas where autistic experiences of empathy are misrecognized or overlooked-- otherwise, areas of misunderstanding. In doing so, I seek to widen the conditions of success in regards to empathy-- expand what experiences and behavior are recognized as valid displays of empathy.
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Kristen Irwin, Ph.D, Philosophy Department
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Expansions on Empathy for Autistic Experiences
Traditional views of autism define autism by its socio-communicative deficits, furthermore establishing that autistic agents are incapable of Theory of Mind and empathizing with other agents. Despite this, first-person accounts of autism state that autistic agents do experience empathy. This conflict calls for a reconceptualization of empathy to better account for autistics experiences that it typically discounts.In reimagining empathy as a dialogical empathic process, I hope to disentangle and delineate areas where autistic experiences of empathy are misrecognized or overlooked-- otherwise, areas of misunderstanding. In doing so, I seek to widen the conditions of success in regards to empathy-- expand what experiences and behavior are recognized as valid displays of empathy.