It is increasingly common for long-dead scientists, literary “geniuses” and innovators to be forensically diagnosed as autistic. Almost every philosopher has been diagnosed as autistic. Certainly Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Immanual Kant would get diagnosed today as “classic cases.” Instead they were allowed to get through their childhood label-free and live perfectly successfully. I have also recently read arguments that Charles Ludwig Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, and Emily Dickinson have been labeled as autistic though there are skeptics.
The Philosophy of Autism
edited by Jami L. Anderson and Simon Cushing
Chapter Five
A Dash of Autism
by Jami L. Anderson