Miguel Núñez de Prado (University of Granada) and Víctor Fernández Castro (University of Granada): Cognitive Diversity and Non-Ideal Philosophy of Mind.

Abstract: The talk explores current efforts within the Neurodiversity movement to challenge prevailing notions of (healthy) mindedness across both traditional and critical views of mental health science and policymaking. We highlight the need for a non-ideal philosophy of mind that can accommodate (i) the possibility of cognitive diversity and (ii) the openness of the limits of mindedness to social contestation. We discuss whether mental expressivism provides a supportive conceptual framework in this direction. We argue that mental expressivism can be distinguished by its emphasis on the norm-relative, norm-plural, norm-enforcing, and norm-constituting features of mental ascription practices; taken together, these four features highlight the socionormative and contestable boundaries of mindedness, thus providing a way to accommodate the more inclusive view of mind sought by neurodiversity proponents.