Reflections on Neuropragmatics and Clinical Pragmatics: The Theory of Mind in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Schizophrenia

Recently, a part of research in pragmatics has been focused on neuropragmatics. Is it a classic case of neuromania as the ones described by Legrenzi and Umiltà (2014), or is it useful for understanding pragmatics? In this paper we will try to answer this question. Since we believe Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia represent the most vital core of neuropragmatics, neurolinguistics, and clinical pragmatics research (Cummings 2009; 2017; Bambini 2010), we will review and discuss the neuropragmatic literature on these clinical cases. We will argue that the attempts of linking cerebral activations to pragmatics inferences can be equivocal: similar observations have been frequently raised about the neuroimaging studies (Pennisi 2016a; Uttal 2001; Van Orden, Paap 1997). Therefore, we will discuss the philosophical implications of the recent debate on the role of temporo-parietal junction in Theory of Mind (ToM). Some scholars in fact hypothesized that humans usually exercise a sort of mental state integration through inferential processes that are specific for mental phenomena (Saxe, Baron Cohen 2006) and that probably this ability is damaged in patients with ASD (Charman, Baron-Cohen 1992; Leslie, Thaiss 1992; Pennisi 2016b) and schizophrenia (Lee et al. 2011). This idea is much debated: the only way to clarify the problem would be to identify brain areas for mental state integrations (Stone, Gerrans 2006); some researchers claim that these areas could be in temporo-parietal junction (Perner et al. 2006). We will show that an approach to the neuropragmatics and/or neurolinguistics literature that also considers the philosophical-psychopathological perspective can allow the understanding of the speech of subjects with ASD and schizophrenia. Although the neuropragmatics studies frequently consider that schizophrenic subjects are unable to be ironic, sarcastic or have difficulties in figurative language, the cases of schizophrenic schizophasia, the letters written by the patients or their poetic productions, show that this is not always the case. Probably, in psychotic language cases, the problem is to consider schizophrenia without its delusional-hallucinatory context. So, it seems necessary to us that neuropragmatics and clinical pragmatics needs to consider the schizophrenic context: therefore, also of delusion and hallucinations. Also considering the role of the Executive Functions (EF), of ToM or of so-called “domains of language”, if this does not happen there is the risk of losing the sense of schizophrenic speech, and more in general, the sense of the study of cognitive and linguistic context (Bucca 2018; 2020). We recognize the efficacy of neurolinguistics, neuropragmatics and clinical pragmatics studies, however we think that these perspectives must be integrated with the philosophical and psychopathological perspective of the cognitive research on language.