Relative to digital computation, analogue computation has been neglected in the philosophical literature. To the extent that attention has been paid to analogue computation, it has been ...misunderstood. The received view—that analogue computation has to do essentially with continuity—is simply wrong, as shown by careful attention to historical examples of discontinuous, discrete analogue computers. Instead of the received view, I develop an account of analogue computation in terms of a particular type of analogue representation that allows for discontinuity. This account thus characterizes all types of analogue computation, whether continuous or discrete. Furthermore, the structure of this account can be generalized to other types of computation: analogue computation essentially involves analogue representation, whereas digital computation essentially involves digital representation. Besides being a necessary component of a complete philosophical understanding of computation in general, understanding analogue computation is important for computational explanation in contemporary neuroscience and cognitive science.
The life–mind continuity thesis is difficult to study, especially because the relation between life and mind is not yet fully understood, and given that there is still no consensus view neither on ...what qualifies as life nor on what defines mind. Rather than taking up the much more difficult task of addressing the many different ways of explaining how life relates to mind, and vice versa, this paper considers two influential accounts addressing how best to understand the life–mind continuity thesis: first, the theory of autopoiesis (AT) developed in biology and in enactivist theories of mind; and second, the recently formulated free energy principle in theoretical neurobiology, with roots in thermodynamics and statistical physics. This paper advances two claims. The first is that the free energy principle (FEP) should be preferred to the theory of AT, as classically formulated. The second is that the FEP and the recently formulated framework of autopoietic enactivism can be shown to be genuinely continuous on a number of central issues, thus raising the possibility of a joint venture when it comes to answering the life–mind continuity thesis.
There is an ongoing debate on the ontology of relations, which features four main competing approaches:
directionalism
,
positionalism
,
anti-positionalism
, and
primitivism
. This paper focuses on a ...particular version of positionalism, namely
role positionalism
, and proposes the results of an experimental philosophy research concerning aspects of it. We tested the intuitions of ordinary subjects regarding the inter-relational generality of the roles typically assumed for spatial and kinematic relations, namely
source
,
destination
,
theme
,
location
. According to a 2014 paper by Orilia, this generality is rather wide, as it encompasses relations of temporal order, causation, quantitative order, transaction, possession, and parthood. Our findings do not support this proposal, except for parthood, and, in a limited way, for temporal order. We also tested the intuitions of ordinary subjects regarding the contrast between
the pro-converses option
, according to which non-symmetric relations split into distinct converse relations, and
the anti-converses option
, according to which non-symmetric relations have no distinct converses. Although traditionally positionalism is associated to the latter option, in recent works by Orilia role positionalism is associated to the former option for at least some relations, while remaining anchored to the latter option for other relations. Our findings support this mixed line to some extent, but not quite in the way suggested by Orilia in such works.
Resumo O artigo analisa as contribuições da psiquiatria no debate sobre saúde e imigração no período pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial, quando o Brasil recebeu refugiados e deslocados de guerra vindos do ...Leste Europeu. A preocupação com desordens mentais atribuídas aos traumas de guerra tornava a saúde mental tema de debate na imprensa especializada. A partir da análise de artigos médicos publicados nas revistas Arquivos Brasileiros de Higiene Mental e Arquivos Brasileiros de Neuriatria e Psiquiatria e na Revista de Imigração e Colonização , busca-se compreender a relevância da imigração como um campo de atuação e disputa por legitimidade dos psiquiatras no papel de autoridades na elaboração das políticas imigratórias brasileiras.
Abstract The article analyzes the contributions of psychiatry to the debate on health and immigration in the post-Second World War, when Brazil received war refugees and displaced persons from Eastern Europe. The concern with mental disorders attributed to war traumas made mental health a topic of debate in the specialized press. From the analysis of medical articles published in the journals Arquivos Brasileiros de Higiene Mental and Arquivos Brasileiros de Neuriatria e Psiquiatria and in Revista de Imigração e Colonização, we seek to understand the relevance of immigration as a field in which psychiatrists took action and vied for legitimacy as authorities in the preparation of Brazil’s immigration policies.
Resumo O artigo trata da presença de manifestações artísticas de internos do Hospício de Pedro II, primeira instituição psiquiátrica da América Latina (1852-1902). O referencial metodológico ...escolhido centrou-se na historicização dos processos de enquadramento das doenças mentais, com vistas a demonstrar suas consequências para a noção de sujeito e da arte que ele produz e no processo de circulação desses saberes no Brasil. O conceito de mal de arquivo, de Derrida, foi utilizado para analisar os motivos pelos quais tais manifestações e as terapêuticas utilizadas a partir delas foram ignoradas pelas narrativas locais acerca das manifestações artísticas de indivíduos internados em asilos.
Abstract The article deals with the presence of artistic manifestations of inmates of the Hospício de Pedro II, the first psychiatric institution in Latin America (1852-1902). The methodological framework chosen focused on the historicisation of the framing processes of mental illness, in order to demonstrate its consequences for the notion of the subject and the art he produces and in the process of circulation of this knowledge in Brazil. Derrida’s concept of archive fever was used to analyse the reasons why such manifestations and the therapies used based on them were ignored by local narratives about the artistic manifestations of individuals in asylums.
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