Understanding Others in the Face of Indeterminacy:Insights from Mothers of Nonspeaking Autistic Children

Oftentimes one knows what another is feeling, thinking, or intending. In many other cases, however, fellow human beings are not transparent to us, and understanding others often eludes us. We encounter psychological indeterminacy: on particular occasions it may be unclear what another is feeling, desiring, thinking, intending, and so forth. This paper closely examines how mothers of nonspeaking autistic children characterize and respond to psychological indeterminacy in their everyday interactions with their children. In phenomenological interviews with 13 mothers, the mothers describe different types of psychological indeterminacy, how they respond to it, and how they see these methods of responding as contributing to understanding their children’s mental lives and increasing their sense of connection to their children. I argue that the mothers’ insights improve our practical and theoretical understanding of psychological indeterminacy in two key respects. First, they enrich our understanding of interpretive practices when encountering psychological indeterminacy. These practices contribute to much-needed hermeneutical resources for interpreting and communicating with nonspeaking autistic individuals and suggest individual-level strategies for countering epistemic injustice in interpersonal dynamics with nonspeaking autistic individuals. Second, they introduce considerations that challenge the prevalent idea that psychological indeterminacy is entirely negative.