Delusion is one of the most intriguing psychopathological phenomena and its conceptualization remains the subject of genuine debate. Claims that it is ill-defined, however, are typically grounded on essentialist expectations that a given definition should capture the core of every instance acknowledged as delusion in the clinical setting.

Na Co nd i ç ã o Huma na, publ i c a do e m1958, Hannah Arendt estabeleceu umadistinção importante entre a “condiçãohumana” e a “nat ur eza humana”. Apar t i r des t e anal i s e f enomenol ógi co,Arendt tentou circunscrever os limitesda “natureza humana”, e responder aosteóricos positivistas que consideravampossível conhecer o quid da naturezabiológica humana. Para Arendt, a açãohumana, a diferença dos eventos ocorrena natureza, consiste numa característicamui t o es peci f (...) i ca a l i ber dade. Comoresultado dele; uma correta compreensãodo fenômeno da condição humana, nãopode ser esgotada por apelar só à dimensãobiológica, devido a que, a ação humananão pode ser exatamente explicada pelasforças que atuam no exterior, o analisedo naturismo é insuficiente. E não podeesgot ar o pr obl ema do f enômeno daliberdade humana.Por sua parte, porém Hans Jonas, nãodes envol veu ampl ament e es t e t ema,inclui em O Principio de Responsabilidade,nos capí t ul os ci nco e sei s, uma duracritica ao projeto marxista que apela aoconceito desenvolvido por Arendt, de homolaborens, o qual é uma das manifestaçõesda “condição humana”.In The Human Condi ti on, published in1958, Hannah Arendt makes an importantdistinction between the “human condition”and t he “human nat ure”. Out of t hi sphenomenological analysis, Arendt triedto circumscribe the limits of the “humannat ur e” and t o r es pond t o pos i t i vi s ttheoreticians who considered possible toknow the essence of the biological humannature. For Arendt, human action, unlikethe events that occur in nature, consists ofa characteristic very specific of freedom.As a result, a correct understanding ofthe phenomenon of human condi ti onis not possible through the biologicaldimension, since human action cannot beproperly explained by the forces that actin the external world. This shows that thenaturalistic analysis is insufficient andcannot deal properly with the phenomenonof human freedom.On the other hand, though Hans Jonas didnot treat completely this problem in his ThePrinciple of Responsibility, he offers a hardcriticism of the Marxist project inspiredin Arendt’s notions, targeting the notion of homo laborens,as one of the manifestations of the “humancondition”. (shrink)

We present the opinion of some authors who believe there is no force between a stationary charge and a stationary resistive wire carrying a constant current. We show that this force is different from zero and present its main components: the force due to the charges induced in the wire by the test charge and a force proportional to the current in the resistive wire. We also discuss briefly a component of the force proportional to the square of the current (...) which should exist according to some models and another component due to the acceleration of the conduction electrons in a curved wire carrying a dc current (centripetal acceleration). Finally, we analyze experiments showing the existence of the electric field proportional to the current in resistive wires. (shrink)

In his thesis Para uma Teoria Geral dos Homomorfismos (1944), the Portuguese mathematician José Sebastião e Silva constructed an abstract or generalized Galois theory, that is intimately linked to F. Klein’s Erlangen Program and that foreshadows some notions and results of today’s model theory; an analogous theory was independently worked out by M. Krasner in 1938. In this paper, we present a version of the theory making use of tools which were not at Silva’s disposal. At the same time, we (...) tried to keep in mind, so much as possible, the gist of his standpoint. (shrink)

We give a survey of the study of nonstandard models in recursion theory and reverse mathematics. We discuss the key notions and techniques in effective computability in nonstandard models, and their applications to problems concerning combinatorial principles in subsystems of second order arithmetic. Particular attention is given to principles related to Ramsey’s Theorem for Pairs.

– The paper explores first the postulational basis and significance of‘measures of information’in current information theory and their possible relations to physical entropy and Brillouin's‘negentropy’regarded as the negative of entropy. For some purposes, the same pattern or formal structure may be abstracted from both‘entropy’and‘information’. The paper analyzes, in the second place, the mathematical analogies which have been traced between information theory and quantum mechanics and argues that the analogies have but a limited value when we come to grips with the (...) deeper, and yet unsolved, problems of quantum theory. Lastly it is urged that the indiscriminate extensions of statistical and information‐theoretic methods, and of quantum‐mechanical analogies, e.g.‘linguistic duality’, to psycholinguistics, literary and aesthetic Gestalten, can result only in crude exaggerations. Dialectical methodology requires the continual reformulation of all scientific descriptions which have to reckon perpetually with the richness of human materials. (shrink)

We give a survey of the study of nonstandard models in recursion theory and reverse mathematics. We discuss the key notions and techniques in effective computability in nonstandard models. and their applications to problems concerning combinatorial principles in subsystems of second order arithmetic. Particular attention is given to principles related to Ramsey's Theorem for Pairs.

The series is devoted to the publication of high-level monographs on all areas of mathematical logic and its applications. It is addressed to advanced students and research mathematicians, and may also serve as a guide for lectures and for seminars at the graduate level.

Starting from the importance of the figure of the parrhesiastes — the political and therapeutic truth- teller— for Foucault’s understanding of the care of the self, this paper traces the political figuration of the analogy between philosophers and physicians on the one hand, and rhetors and disease on the other in Plato’s Gorgias. I show how rhetoric, in the form of ventriloquism, infects the text itself, and then ask how we account for the effect of the “ contaminated ” philosophical (...) dialogue on our readerly health. Is the text placebo, vaccine, or virus? All of these options, I argue, complicate Foucault’s prescription for parrhesia, requiring us to think anew the continuing political ramifications of the metaphor of care. (shrink)