Autismo como transtorno da memória pragmática: teses cognitivistas e fenomenológicas à luz da filosofia de Henri Bergson

Abstract

Autism is a psychiatric disorder of early onset first described by Leo Kanner in 1943. For nearly two decades psychoanalytic conception was the most prominent explanation of this pathology in medical and psychological international literature. However, since the1960 s and the1970 s, cognitive and cerebral explanations have started to gain salience, and since the 1980 s they have become the most authoritative theories of the disorder. First of all, this dissertation deals with presenting - by means of anglophone primary bibliography how did transformations on autism conceptions take place between 1943 and 1983. Secondly, it describes the main cognitive theories on the subject focusing on the "theory of mind". It presents also the phenomenological critics to the cognitivistic approach of autism, as well as the phenomenological hypothesis on autism. Finally, this study takes philosopher Henri Bergson s theory to support the thesis that autism is a pragmatic memory disorder, that is, an early disarrangement in the connection between memory and bodily action. Without the pragmatic anchor, there is no possibility of using the background memories and experiences to account for current situations, what brings about the autistic difficulty to build up personal identity, creativity and intersubjectivity. This dissertation contributes to the expansion of research on autism, as an alternative view to the modular cognitivistic and computational explanations. It leads to the appreciation of the body and the brain roles without falling in reductive physicalism