About

Janette Anne Dinishak is an Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Center for Public Philosophy within the Division of Humanities at UC Santa Cruz. Her academic expertise spans philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and autism. Her research interests include the philosophy and history of psychology and psychiatry, especially autism, Wittgenstein, disability, neurodiversity, and ethical theory. Dinishak holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Toronto and a BA in Philosophy from UCLA. She has contributed to the understanding of autism through her work on autistic autobiography, neurodiversity, and the social and philosophical aspects of autism and neurodiversity. Her scholarly activities include teaching courses on philosophy, ethics, and autism, as well as engaging in research that explores the perceptual, neurobiological, and philosophical dimensions of autism and related topics.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Developmental psychology
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Computer Science
• Philosophy
• Medicine
• Epistemology

Selected publications

• A Living Experiment in Concept Formation: Hacking on the Creation of a Language for Autistic Experience

  The Monist · 2025-07-14 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Ian Hacking argues that autism narratives are creating the language in which to describe autistic experience. This paper updates and extends Hacking’s analysis by examining recent developments in the language creation, particularly through his Making Up People project. The discussion focuses on autistic people’s conceptual innovations, using “autistic space” to illustrate their ongoing experiments in concept formation. I argue that “autistic space” functions as a site of positive identity formation and as an engine of resistance, allowing autistic people to challenge “expert” knowledge and foster new forms of expertise and institutions in autism science, education, and advocacy. The conclusion reflects on what this discussion reveals about the ethical significance of Hacking’s central idea that kinds of people are “moving targets.”

  PublisherDOI

• Autistic Space: Definition and History

  2025-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Autistic Autobiography

  2024-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Short report: Can autie-biographies influence non-autistic readers’ views of autism and autistic people?

  Neurodiversity · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Autistic testimony can be used to both broaden and constrain current theorizing about autism, and to educate lay people of the experiences of (some) autistic individuals. One way to access this testimony involves reading autistic autobiographies (autie-biographies). Dinishak and Akhtar outline several potential benefits of autie-biographies, including questioning assumptions, counteracting stereotypes, and increasing understanding of autistic experiences. As a first step in examining whether autie-biographies can produce these benefits, we coded book reviews of 52 English autie-biographies for three themes (suggestions for research/policy; changed views of autism; increased empathy/understanding) and found evidence for all three. These results suggest that reading autie-biographies may benefit non-autistic readers. Lay Abstract One potential way to gain an understanding of autistic perspectives involves reading autistic autobiographies (autie-biographies). If autie-biographies influence readers’ views about autism and autistic people, then book reviews of autie-biographies should indicate changes in the review authors’ views. In this study we examined whether book reviews of autie-biographies: 1) contained suggestions for research and/or policy; 2) suggested changes in the review author's view of autism; and/or 3) mentioned an increased understanding of autistic experiences. We found that most reviews contained one or more of these themes, suggesting that reading autie-biographies might be an effective way to influence non-autistic people’s views about autism.

  PublisherDOI

• Autistic Space: Definition and History

  2024-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Embracing the In-Betweenness of Aspect-Perception's Normative Dimensions

  Nordic Wittgenstein Review · 2022-08-14

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract: This paper examines the following two ideas and their relations: (i) aspect-perception is a perceptual experience; (ii) veridicality is the primary standard for evaluating the success of a perceptual experience. I argue that a valuable lesson to glean from Wittgenstein’s investigations of aspect-perception is that aspect-perception is “in-between” when it comes to whether and how veridicality is at issue in it. Yet it does not follow from this in-betweenness that there is no standard by which we evaluate aspect-perception, no notion of success at perceiving an aspect. Aspect-perception has normative dimensions that are not a matter of veridicality, or at least not in any straightforward way, some of which I explore here. These normative dimensions are brought to light, in part, by shifting evaluative focus to what the perceiver “brings” to aspect-perception experiences and attending the ways aspect-perception requires and involves mastery of a technique. The shift in focus also helps illuminate different ways of understanding aspect-blindness and the kinds of failure at play in different kinds of aspect-blindness. All in all, embracing aspect-perception’s in-betweenness regarding whether or not veridicality is at issue in it illumines aspect-perception’s distinctive character and richness.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Still Infantilizing Autism? An Update and Extension of Stevenson et al. (2011)

  Autism in Adulthood · 2022 · 30 citations

  • Sociology
  • Psychology
  • Developmental psychology

  Background: Stevenson et al. (2011) examined photographs and language used to represent autism on chapter websites for the Autism Society of America, autism charity websites, movies, television shows, fictional books, and U.S. new stories and found that they overwhelmingly used children to represent autism. Methods: Using Stevenson et al.'s methods, we tested the hypothesis that, a decade on, these same sources would now include more representations of autistic adults. We statistically compared our findings with theirs. Results: On the chapter websites of the Autism Society of America and in fictional books, the hypothesis was supported in that there were more representations of adults (19%-20%) than in the original study (5%-9%), but there were still far more representations of children than of adults. In movies, television shows, and U.S. news stories, there were equal numbers of representations of autistic adults and autistic children. Conclusions: These findings suggest a move away from infantilizing autism in some domains, but they rely on a narrow construal of "infantilizing": the underrepresentation of autistic adults in media. However, even when autistic adults are represented, they may still be infantilized in various ways. Future research will need to examine the impact of infantilizing media on both autistic and non-autistic people, and other ways in which these representations are limited (e.g., gender and race/ethnicity).

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Köhler, Wittgenstein, and the Live Bonds of Dynamical Reality

  Philosophia Scientae · 2022-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Wolfgang Köhler made the following remark in Gestalt Psychology [1929]: “The ways of real life do not coincide with those of classification, and if, by abstraction, we unite the members of one class, we very probably cut the live bonds of dynamical reality at the same time. Perhaps, the most interesting forms of dynamical context occur between members of altogether different classes” [351]. This paper argues that reflection on Köhler’s remark serves to illuminate how Wittgenstein thought about classification and concepts in his 1940s writings on philosophical psychology. In particular, it provides insight into what is at issue for Wittgenstein in how to characterize concepts connected to seeing and seeing aspects.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Integrating autistic perspectives into autism science: A role for autistic autobiographies

  Autism · 2022-09-08 · 11 citations

  reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Autism science faces several conceptual and ethical challenges. These include fundamental issues such as how to characterize autism and the fact that research findings and how they are interpreted sometimes contribute to negative perceptions of autistic people. We argue that some of these challenges can be addressed by centering the perspectives of autistic people and focus on one way to accomplish this: having non-autistic researchers critically engage with personal accounts of autistic experience. We discuss some of the advantages and challenges of engaging with these accounts and argue that they can play a role in the reform of autism science. Lay abstract Autism science faces challenges in how to think about autism and what questions to focus on, and sometimes contributes to stigma against autistic people. We examine one way that non-autistic researchers may start to combat these challenges: by reading and reflecting on autistic people’s descriptions of their personal experiences (e.g. autobiographies) of what it is like to be autistic. In this article, we review some of the advantages and challenges of this approach and how it may help combat some of the challenges currently facing autism science by focusing studies on the questions autistic people find most important, counteracting stereotypes, and increasing understanding of autistic experiences.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Autistic autobiography and hermeneutical injustice

  Metaphilosophy · 2021 · 21 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Epistemology
  • Sociology

  Abstract This paper examines epistemic injustice in knowledge production concerning autism. Its aim is to further our understanding of the distinctive shapes of the kinds of epistemic injustices against autists. The paper shows how Ian Hacking’s work on autistic autobiography brings into view a form of hermeneutical injustice that autists endure with respect to their firsthand accounts of their experiences of autism. It explores how understanding the distinctive shape of this hermeneutical injustice can help us further appreciate dangers and harms of using interpretive frameworks for autistic experience that neglect autists’ own contributions to the formation of words and concepts for capturing their experiences. In particular, the paper argues that even when autists are included in knowledge production concerning autistic experience, they remain vulnerable to forms of hermeneutical marginalization that can stifle the coming into being of autistic experience.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Nameera Akhtar

  7 shared

• James A. Marcum

  1 shared

• Jennifer L. Frymiare

  Ursinus College

  1 shared

• Vikram K. Jaswal

  University of Virginia

  1 shared

• Bryce Huebner

  Georgetown University

  1 shared

• Jelle De Schrijver

  1 shared

• Christine Stephan

  Harrison Medical Center

  1 shared

• Nico Orlandi

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  1 shared