Colombino2006
| Colombino2006 | |
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| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Colombino2006 |
| Author(s) | Tommaso Colombino |
| Title | Problems with a Relevance-Theoretic Account of Autism |
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| Tag(s) | autism, ethnomethodology, relevance theory, Theory of Mind |
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| Year | 2006 |
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| Journal | Theory & Psychology |
| Volume | 16 |
| Number | 2 |
| Pages | 169–177 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1177/0959354306062534 |
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Abstract
This paper responds to Szilvia Papp's paper ‘A Relevance-Theoretic Account of the Development and Deficits of Theory of Mind in Normally Developing Children and Individuals with Autism’. This response argues that positing mind-reading abilities, in the form of a Theory of Mind, is necessary to account for autistic behavior only if one subscribes a priori to theoretical reductions of mental predicates (such as understanding) to cognitive and linguistic processes. This, in the author's opinion, is an unnecessary theoretical appropriation of concepts the meaning of which has not been logically distinguished from their common-sense use. Ordinary observable behavior (autistic or otherwise) is described in language that does not imply, and from which one can not unproblematically infer, theoretical propositions of a neurobehavioral kind. This response therefore argues that the refinement to Theory of Mind proposed by Szilvia Papp, into first-and second-order mind-reading abilities, does not, in fact, address this critique.
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