Abstract

Autism Spectrum Conditions are marked by social-communicative difficulties and unusually fixed or repetitive interests, activities, and behaviors. In this thesis, I review empirically and conceptually based philosophic proposals that maintain the social-communicative difficulties exhibited by persons on the autism spectrum result from a lack of capacity to understand other persons as minded. I will argue that the social-communicative difficulties that characterize ASCs may instead result from a lack of ability to access other minds, and that this lack of ability is due to a contingent lack of external resources.