Objective: Body checking (BC) and avoidance (BA) form the behavioral component of body image disturbance. High levels of BC/BA have often been documented to hold a positive and potentially reinforcing relationship with eating pathology. While some researchers hypothesize, that patients engage in BC/BA to prevent or reduce levels of anxiety, little is known about the mediating factors. Considering the great comorbidity between eating disorders and in particular social anxieties, the present study investigated whether socially relevant types of anxiety mediate the (...) relationship between eating pathology and BC/BA. Method: 83 participants reporting an eating disorder and 323 healthy participants (14-25 years) took part in an online survey. Eating pathology was measured with the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire and Body Checking and Avoidance Questionnaire. Trait and social anxiety were assessed by means of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T), the Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE) and the Social Appearance and Anxiety Scale (SAAS). Separate mediation analyses were carried out with eating pathology as independent variable, BC/BA as dependent variable and STAI, FNE and SAAS as mediating variables. Results: Anxieties correlated highly positive with eating pathology in both groups. SAAS mediated the relationship between ED pathology and BC/BA in participants with ED and mediated the relationship between ED pathology and BA in healthy participants. FNE mediated the relationship between eating pathology and BA for participants with eating pathology. Discussion: SAAS mediated the relationship between eating pathology and BC/BA. Being afraid of bodily evaluations may represent a particular relevant fear that triggers safety behaviors. (shrink)

During the last few decades there has been an enormous increase in locally based historical plays in Norway. These are staged by amateurs, although professionals may hold important positions both on and behind the stage. The dramas have their origin in actual or invented historical events located in the area, and the stage is carefully selected to create an aura of authenticity to the performance. The environment creates dramatic scenery as they are mostly staged outdoor, and the audience frequently have (...) to make an effort to travel to the site of the performance. As the plays are staged annually or biennially, they constitute a regular ritual performance in the community. At the same time, minor changes are allowed for from year to year, and which are widely discussed and appraised by the audience and others. Although these dramas claim to represent historical events and period pictures, their underlying message is of current interest. They become mediums whereby the past is seen through the ideological and moral lenses of the present, and are also catalysts for creating selected memories for the future. As such, they should also be considered on the background of the wider social dramas surrounding the actual plays. (shrink)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's texts on the philosophy of science (The Experiment as Mediator Between Object and Subject, 1793) and (Meteors of the Literary Sky, 1820) both discuss the fundamental epistemological question how knowledge emerges: They ask how scientists can gain universally valid knowledge by observing natural phenomena and to what extent the individual researcher is affected by the scientific community. In this paper, Goethe's writings are presented as alternatives to the contemporary discussions on scientific plagiarism. Goethe shows that the (...) linking of knowledge to an individual subject is less an effect of scientific practice than the result of a specific practice of attribution. Plagiarism thus appears as a logical consequence of the principle of priority in modern scientific culture. German In Johann Wolfgang von Goethes wissenschaftstheoretischen Texten Der Versuch als Vermittler von Objekt und Subjekt (1793) und Meteore des literarischen Himmels (1820) geht es um die grundlegende epistemologische Frage, wie Wissen entsteht: Sie fragen danach, wie Wissenschaftler aus den Beobachtungen der Naturphänomene allgemeingültige Erkenntnisse gewinnen können und inwieweit der einzelne Forscher von der wissenschaftlichen Gemeinschaft beeinflusst wird. Goethes Schriften werden hier als Alternativen zu den aktuellen Diskussionen um wissenschaftliche Plagiate – mit ihrer Neigung zur Personalisierung und zum Skandal – vorgestellt. Goethe zeigt, dass die enge Kopplung von Wissen an ein einziges Subjekt weniger der wissenschaftlichen Praxis entspricht, als vielmehr das Ergebnis einer spezifischen Zuschreibungspraxis ist. Das kritikwürdige Plagiat erscheint somit auch als eine logische Konsequenz des Prioritätsgebots der modernen Wissenschaftskultur. (shrink)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's texts on the philosophy of science (The Experiment as Mediator Between Object and Subject, 1793) and (Meteors of the Literary Sky, 1820) both discuss the fundamental epistemological question how knowledge emerges: They ask how scientists can gain universally valid knowledge by observing natural phenomena and to what extent the individual researcher is affected by the scientific community. In this paper, Goethe's writings are presented as alternatives to the contemporary discussions on scientific plagiarism. Goethe shows that the (...) linking of knowledge to an individual subject is less an effect of scientific practice than the result of a specific practice of attribution. Plagiarism thus appears as a logical consequence of the principle of priority in modern scientific culture. (shrink)

In dieser Arbeit werden die Verhandlungen in der UNO uber eine internationale Regelung des Humanklonens analysiert: vom Beginn der Verhandlungen, uber die jahrelangen Debatten, bis zum Abbruch der Bemuhungen, werden die Ereignisse zunachst chronologisch aufgearbeitet und erlautert. Dem folgt eine genaue Darstellung der verschiedenen Positionen in der UNO. Anschliessend werden die Hintergrunde der Verhandlungen naher beleuchtet und die Ursachen fur deren Scheitern erforscht. Dazu wird zum einen auf die ethische und rechtliche Bewertung des Humanklonens und den Einfluss der Religionen eingegangen. (...) Zum anderen werden nationale Regelungen ausgewahlter Lander dargestellt und andere politische Einflusse betrachtet. Die Arbeit endet mit der Suche nach alternativen Losungsmoglichkeiten.". (shrink)

Epistemic pluralism is a form of pluralism whose object is knowledge, a sub- stantial component or prerequisite of knowledge, or a process of knowledge acquisition. It assumes that this target notion can be realised in not one, but many ways, and that this plurality is non-trivial.

In this article, we reflect critically on how moral actions are categorised in some recent studies on moral spillovers. Based on classic concepts from moral philosophy, we present a framework to categorise moral actions. We argue that with a finer classification of moral values, associated behaviour is better understood, and this understanding helps to identify the conditions under which moral licensing takes place. We illustrate our argument with examples from the literature on pro-environmental behaviours. Moral spillovers are frequently studied in (...) this behavioural domain and to understand what causes their occurrence is highly (policy) relevant if we wish to promote sustainable behaviour. (shrink)

Eating disorders (EDs) are characterized by marked cognitive distortions and maladaptive schemas. Cognitive models of EDs highlight the direct impact of cognitive dysfunctions on eating-related disturbances, insofar as specific cognitive contents such as thoughts about diet rules and food or loss of control may trigger disturbed eating behavior. Moreover, early maladaptive schemas that reflect perfectionist standards and relate to achievement and performance seem to be associated with disturbed eating, e.g. via their impact on situation-specific appraisals. However, so far, no study (...) has investigated these assumptions. Hence, the present study sought to demonstrate whether and how cognitive content exerts an impact on eating behavior in daily life, and whether maladaptive core schemas impact the occurrence of binge eating via dysfunctional ED cognitions in eating-related contexts. N = 29 females with Bulimia Nervosa (BN), n = 31 females with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and n = 30 female controls without EDs (NC) participated in the study. All participants received a handheld computer for a 48-hour period to capture antecedents of disturbed eating behavior in daily life. Event-sampling (meals, binge eating, purging, stressful situations) and signal-sampling (five times a day) methods were applied. EMA included a short questionnaire to assess dysfunctional cognitions and level of craving and to capture information about situational contexts. Early maladaptive schemas were assessed using a short version of the Young Schema Questionnaire at baseline. The main results showed specific patterns of dysfunctional eating-related cognitions for BED and BN. Binge eating was predicted by thoughts about loss of control (positively) and dietary restraint (negatively). For meal situations, no significant differences between the two ED groups emerged. All three domains exerted indirect effects on craving via thoughts about ‘eating/loss of control’, whereas neither a direct nor an indirect effect emerged regarding thoughts about ‘dietary restraint’. These results fit well with previous studies and support cognitive models of EDs; schema therapeutic approaches may be a valuable contribution to enhance treatment of EDs. Further studies should explore whether the findings from emerging adulthood can be generalized to younger age groups. (shrink)

This systematic review synthesises the available evidence regarding the European understanding of workplace spirituality (definitions), the importance of spirituality and religion (evidence) as well as spiritual leadership (meaning and practice) in for-profitorganizations. The search for eligible studies was conducted in OPAC Plus, SCOPUS, Science Direct, JSTOR, EBSCO, and Google Scholar from 2007/01 to 2017/07. Three independent scholars extracted the data. Twenty studies were included (two mixed-methods, eight quantitative, ten qualitative) for the final quality assessment. A study quality assessment and thematic (...) analysis was conducted. This review gives suggestions for study quality improvement and reporting. Thematically, two different approaches to religion and spirituality (R/S) were detected: a) work has a spiritual dimension and b) religious and spiritual orientation as “spiritual capital”. Studies demonstrated positive effect on job satisfaction, health, commitment, company productivity and sustainability; Christian leadership does not address personal religious orientation; the spiritual dimension may lead to a change of perspective; workplace spirituality may exploit people for profit-oriented business goals; non-white Muslims experience discrimination. This systematic review provides robust evidence and findings for evidence-informed policymaking and encourages a more rigorous research in this field of study. (shrink)

To successfully learn using open Internet resources, students must be able to critically search, evaluate and select online information, and verify sources. Defined as critical online reasoning, this construct is operationalized on two levels in our study: the student level using the newly developed Critical Online Reasoning Assessment, and the online information processing level using event log data, including gaze durations and fixations. The written responses of 32 students for one CORA task were scored by three independent raters. The resulting (...) score was operationalized as “task performance,” whereas the gaze fixations and durations were defined as indicators of “process performance.” Following a person-oriented approach, we conducted a process mining analysis, as well as a latent class analysis to test whether—following the dual-process theory—the undergraduates could be distinguished into two groups based on both their process and task performance. Using PM, the process performance of all 32 students was visualized and compared, indicating two distinct response process patterns. One group of students, defined as “strategic information processers,” processed online information more comprehensively, as well as more efficiently, which was also reflected in their higher task scores. In contrast, the distributions of the process performance variables for the other group, defined as “avoidance information processers,” indicated a poorer process performance, which was also reflected in their lower task scores. In the LCA, where two student groups were empirically distinguished by combining the process performance indicators and the task score as a joint discriminant criterion, we confirmed these two COR profiles, which were reflected in high vs. low process and task performances. The estimated parameters indicated that high-performing students were significantly more efficient at conducting strategic information processing, as reflected in their higher process performance. These findings are so far based on quantitative analyses using event log data. To enable a more differentiated analysis of students’ visual attention dynamics, more in-depth qualitative research of the identified student profiles in terms of COR will be required. (shrink)

The psychopathological phenomenon of delusions of influence comprises variable disturbances of the self-environment-border leading to the feeling of external influence on thoughts, feelings, impulses or behaviors. Delusions of influence are a hallmark in psychotic illness, but nevertheless, attenuated forms can also appear in healthy individuals. Here we present a newly developed paradigm to induce and assess feelings of external influence during instructed imaginations in healthy individuals. In the current study, we asked 60 healthy individuals to visually imagine different objects. To (...) induce feelings of external influence, we applied one of three different physical setups, and informed the participants whether or not an external influence was attempted during the respective trial. The physical setup as well as the information given to the participants alone were able to modulate the feeling of external influence in all three interventions. The impact of information significantly exceeded the impact of the physical setup on the ratings of experienced external influence. Moreover, the response latency correlated with the estimated feeling of external influence. Additional analyses addressed the influence of the emotional content of imagined objects and examined the intensity and emotional valence of the imaginations. Further supplemental analyses correlated external influence estimation of the participants with other psychopathological measures. In conclusion, this study endorses a quantitative model of psychopathological characteristics, in this case feelings of external influence that can be induced by external cues. (shrink)

Background: There are few standardized measures available to assess executive function in a naturalistic setting for children. The Children’s Cooking Task is a complex test that has been specifically developed to assess EF in a standardized open-ended environment. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, sensitivity and specificity, and also convergent and divergent validity of the Norwegian version of CCT among children with pediatric Acquired Brain Injury and healthy controls.Methods: The present study has (...) a cross-sectional design, based on baseline data derived from a multicenter RCT. Seventy-five children with pABI from two university hospitals with parent-reported executive dysfunction and minimum of 12 months since injury/completed cancer therapy, as well as 59 HCs aged 10–17 years, were assessed with CCT using total errors as the main outcome measure. The pABI group completed tests assessing EF on the impairment level within the ICF framework, and on the participation level. In addition, they completed tests of intellectual ability, processing speed, attention, learning, and memory. Finally, overall functional outcome was evaluated for the children with pABI.Results: Acceptable internal consistency and good inter-rater reliability were found for the CCT. Children with pABI performed significantly worse on the CCT than the HCs. The CCT identified group membership, but the sensitivity and specificity were overall classified as poor. Convergent validity was demonstrated by associations between the CCT and performance-based tests assessing inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and working memory, as well as teacher-reported executive dysfunction. Divergent validity was supported by the lack of association with performance-based measures of learning and memory, attention, and verbal intellectual ability. However, there was a moderate association between the CCT and performance-based tests of processing speed. Lastly, better performance on the CCT was associated with a better functional outcome.Conclusion: Our study with a relatively large sample of children with pABI and HC’s demonstrated good psychometric properties of the CCT. CCT performance was associated with the overall level of disability and function, suggesting that CCT is related to the level of activity in everyday life and participation in society. Hence, our study suggests that the CCT has the potential to advance the assessment of EF by providing a valid analysis of real-world performance. Nevertheless, further research is needed on larger samples, focusing on predictors of task performance, and evaluating the ability of CCT to detect improvement in EF over time. The patterns of error and problem-solving strategies evaluated by the CCT could be used to inform neuropsychological rehabilitation treatmentand represent a more valid outcome measure of rehabilitation interventions. (shrink)

IT IS NO LONGER UNUSUAL to find ethical or moral relativism defended, yet there remains some uneasiness about the position, even among its defenders. Richard Brandt, for example, who offers a version he finds "somewhat plausible," admits that he and most other philosophers "have an anti-relativist predilection, at least when we come to moral issues which are important.".

What system of morals should rational people select as the best for society? Using a contemporary psychological theory of action and of motivation, Richard Brandt's Oxford lectures argue that the purpose of living should be to strive for the greatest good for the largest number of people. Brandt's discussions range from the concept of welfare to conflict between utilitarian moral codes and the dictates of self-interest.

In this paper, we argue that, in order to account for the apparently substantive nature of definitional disputes, a commitment to what we call ‘Socratic essentialism’ is needed. We defend Socratic essentialism against a prominent neo-Carnapian challenge according to which apparently substantive definitional disputes always in some way trace back to disagreements over how expressions belonging to a particular language or concepts belonging to a certain conceptual scheme are properly used. Socratic essentialism, we argue, is not threatened by the possibility (...) that some apparently substantive definitional disputes may turn out to be verbal or conceptual, since this pluralist strategy, in our view, requires a commitment to more, rather than fewer, essences. What is more, a deflationary, metaphysically ‘light-weight’ construal of the essence-ascriptions in question leads to a peculiar conception of the pursuit of metaphysicians as behaving like deceptive (or self-deceived) grammarians pretending to be scientists. Moreover, this deflationary attitude, we argue, spreads beyond metaphysics and philosophy more broadly to apparently substantive definitional disputes in the sciences as well as other in other disciplines, such as art criticism. (shrink)

This chapter discusses reasons why we have no prospect of knowing whether or not matter thinks. It focuses on the mechanist hypothesis, its purported explanatory scope, and John Locke's commitment to it. The chapter then demonstrates God's immateriality and its implications for the possibility that God has given perception and thought to some material things. It addresses the notion of divine superaddition elaborated in letters to Stillingfleet and considers how thinking, extension, solidity, and motion are connected in case they do (...) coexist in the same substance. The whole difference between Locke and his opponents on the epistemic possibility of thinking matter comes down to this. He maintains, and they deny, that we know the fixed nature of substances of various kinds, a constituent of a substance that determines the powers it necessarily has and those it necessarily lacks. (shrink)

This paper evaluates six contenders which might be invoked by essentialists in order to meet Quine’s challenge, viz., to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the crossworld identity of individuals: (i) an object’s qualitative character; (ii) matter; (iii) origins; (iv) haecceities or primitive non-qualitative thisness properties; (v) “world-indexed properties”; and (iv) individual forms. The first three candidates, I argue, fail to provide conditions that are both necessary and sufficient for the crossworld identity of individuals; the fourth and fifth criteria are (...) open to the charge that they do not succeed in meeting Quine’s demand in an explanatorily adequate fashion. On balance, then, individual forms, or so I propose, deserve to be taken very seriously as a possible response to Quine’s challenge, especially by neo-Aristotelians who are already committed to a hylomorphic conception of composite concrete particular objects for other reasons. Theorists who also accept a non-modal conception of essence, i.e., a conception according to which essence is not reducible to modality, in addition face the further difficult task, over and above what is required to meet Quine’s challenge, of having to explain how an object’s de re modal profile in some way follows from facts about its essence. Haecceities and world-indexed properties, as I indicate, are unlikely to be of much help with respect to this second challenge, while the forms of hylomorphic compounds are in fact well-suited for this purpose. (shrink)

This chapter discusses why the grounding idiom does not perform as well as we have been led to believe in providing a plausible approach to relative fundamentality. Grounding suffers from some of same deficiencies as supervenience: most prominently, grounding also fails to be sufficiently fine-grained to do its intended explanatory work. In addition, there is doubt as to whether the phenomena collected together under the rubric of grounding are really unified by the presence of a single relation. Grounding turns out (...) not to be helpful in capturing and illuminating what is philosophically important about the traditional substance/non-substance distinction. Although grounding performs better than supervenience in some ways, it does not solve all of the problems to which a supervenience-based approach to relative fundamentality falls prey. (shrink)

Wittgenstein und Merleau-Ponty gelten als Vertreter zweier gegensätzlicher Schulen, der Analytischen Philosophie und der Phänomenologie. In ihrer topologisch vergleichenden Analyse eröffnet Stengel an Hand der Situierung des Menschen im intersubjektiven Raum einen neuen Blick auf wesentliche Themen der modernen Philosophie, insbesondere die Probleme der Sprache und der Wahrnehmung. Der Vergleich der Wittgensteinschen Sprach- und der Merleau-Pontyschen Wahrnehmungsanalyse offenbart dabei verblüffende Ähnlichkeiten, die sich in einer Theorie des Schauens zusammenführen lassen. Das Buch revolutioniert die Debatte zwischen "Analytischer" und "Kontinentaler" Philosophie.

Whether it is consciously focusing on a painting’s intricate layers of pigment or spontaneously being drawn to new layers of voices in a choral performance, attention appears essential to aesthetic experience. It is surprising, then, that the actual nature of attention is little discussed in aesthetic theory. Conversely, attention is currently one of the most vibrantly discussed topics in the philosophy of perception and in cognitive science. My aim is to demonstrate the need for and the value of aestheticians considering (...) such philosophical accounts in order to establish a clear understanding of ‘aesthetic attention’. I assess the existing aesthetic candidates against Wayne Wu’s characterization of attention as ‘selection for a task’. Finding that these candidates lack full explanatory force, I make the novel proposal that aesthetic attention is best characterized as ‘selecting for the sake of selection’. Finally, I suggest that both aesthetics and, more broadly, the philosophy of attention would benefit from paying aesthetic attention more attention. (shrink)

Hands are notoriously hard to draw. To compellingly capture their detail, proportion, and movement is generally considered a mark of an artist’s mastery of tech.

The objects we encounter in ordinary life and scientific practice - cars, trees, people, houses, molecules, galaxies, and the like - have long been a fruitful source of perplexity for metaphysicians. The Structure of Objects gives an original analysis of those material objects to which we take ourselves to be committed in our ordinary, scientifically informed discourse. Koslicki focuses on material objects in particular, or, as metaphysicians like to call them "concrete particulars", i.e., objects which occupy a single region of (...) space-time at each time at which they exist and which have a certain range of properties that go along with space-occupancy, such as weight, shape, color, texture, and temperature. The Structure of Objects focuses in particular on the question of how the parts of such objects, assuming that they have parts, are related to the wholes which they compose. (shrink)

Beta‐oxidation of fatty acids and detoxification of reactive oxygen species are generally accepted as being fundamental functions of peroxisomes. Additionally, these pathways might have been the driving force favoring the selection of this compartment during eukaryotic evolution. Here we performed phylogenetic analyses of enzymes involved in beta‐oxidation of fatty acids in Bacteria, Eukaryota, and Archaea. These imply an alpha‐proteobacterial origin for three out of four enzymes. By integrating the enzymes' history into the contrasting models on the origin of eukaryotic cells, (...) we conclude that peroxisomes most likely evolved non‐symbiotically and subsequent to the acquisition of mitochondria in an archaeal host cell. (shrink)

Tiere haben erstaunliche kognitive Fähigkeiten, ein diesen Fähigkeiten entsprechendes Bewußtsein und Formen des Selbstbewußtseins. Das Denken in diskreten Einheiten von Urteilen scheint ihnen jedoch nicht zugänglich zu sein, damit auch nicht die Unterscheidung von Bejahung und Verneinung und von wahr und falsch. Wie ist das Denken und damit das objektive Erkennen beim Menschen entstanden? Welche Rolle spielt das Gehirn bei Mensch und Tier? Wir Menschen leben in zwei Welten, die paradoxerweise zugleich eine ist. Das Tageslicht, Gerüche, die Hauswand, an der (...) wir entlanggehen und die wir nicht durchschreiten können diese unsere Lebenswelt unterscheidet sich zunächst nicht von der des Hundes, der uns begleitet. Tiere nehmen sinnlich wahr wie wir, sie erschrecken wie wir bei einem lauten Geräusch, sie zeigen dieselbe freudige Erregung wie wir. Zugleich gibt es für uns eine andere, wiewohl identische Welt, von der die Tiere offenbar nichts wissen: Wir Menschen machen die Dinge zu Objekten der Erkenntnis; dieselbe Sonne, die uns blendet und die sich im Tageslauf langsam von Osten nach Westen bewegt, steht, so erkennen wir, fest im Zentrum des Planetensystems. Wir spüren die Kälte, aber wir erkennen in ihr zugleich die Ursache der Eisbildung; kein Tier weiß, was eine Ursache ist, kein Tier kann sich wundern, und auch denken kann es nicht. These: Natürlich können Tiere denken. "Ach, Sie werden es nicht glauben, aber unser Leo versteht jedes Wort." Gegenthese: Natürlich können Tiere nicht denken. Es fehlen ihnen vor allem zwei Voraussetzungen des Urteilens und Denkens: Sie verfügen über keine geeigneten Begriffe, und sie kennen keine gemeinsame Öffentlichkeit, die durch das Zeigen geschaffen und im Urteil vertieft wird. (shrink)

Some theories of linguistic meaning, such as those of Paul Grice and David Lewis, make appeal to higher–order thoughts: thoughts about thoughts. Because of this, such theories run the risk of being empirically refuted by the existence of speakers who lack, completely or to a high degree, the capacity of thinking about thoughts. Research on autism during the past 15 years provides strong evidence for the existence of such speakers. Some persons with autism have linguistic abilities that qualify them as (...) speakers, but manifest a severely impaired capacity to understand what it is to have beliefs. (shrink)

Implicit bias is one of the most successful cases in recent memory of an academic concept being translated into practice. Its use in the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program—which seeks to promote gender equality in STEM careers through institutional transformation—has raised fundamental questions about organizational change. How do advocates translate theories into practice? What makes some concepts more tractable than others? What happens to theories through this translation process? We explore these questions using the ADVANCE program as a case study. (...) Using an inductive, theory-building approach and combination of computational and qualitative methods, we investigate how the concept of implicit bias was translated into practice through the ADVANCE program and identify five key features that made implicit bias useful as a change framework in the academic STEM setting. We find that the concept of implicit bias works programmatically because it is demonstrable, relatable, versatile, actionable, and impartial. While enabling the concept’s diffusion, these characteristics also limit its scope. We reflect on implications for gender theories of organizational change and for practitioners. (shrink)

Normativism in the theory of meaning and content is the view that linguistic meaning and/or intentional content are essentially normative. As both normativity and its essentiality to meaning/content can be interpreted in a number of different ways, there is now a whole family of views laying claim to the slogan “meaning/content is normative”. In this essay, we discuss a number of central normativist theses, and we begin by identifying different versions of meaning normativism, presenting the arguments that have been put (...) forth for and against them. (shrink)

In public debate GMPs are oftenreferred to as being unnatural or a violationof nature. Some people have serious moralconcerns about departures from what is natural.Others are concerned about potential risks tothe environment arising from the combination ofhereditary material moving across naturalboundaries and the limits of scientificforesight of long-term consequences. To addresssome of these concerns we propose that anadditional element in risk assessment based onthe concept of familiarity should beintroduced. The objective is to facilitatetransparency about uncertainties inherent inthe risk assessment of (...) the GMP. Familiarityconventionally involves data and experiencerelating to the plant species and the ecosystemin question. We would like to extend thisconcept to the molecular level of plantbreeding and suggest that GMP characteristicsshould be compared to a reference baselinedetermined by conventional breeding techniques.Three GMPs are ranked according to familiarityat the plant and ecosystem level and themolecular level. The approach may help tointegrate discussion of the scientificarguments and moral questions raised in thedebate about GMOs by providing an operationalscheme within which moral concerns are broughtwithin the framework of science-based riskassessment. (shrink)

In _Form, Matter, Substance_, Kathrin Koslicki defends a hylomorphic analysis of concrete particular objects (e.g., living organisms). The Aristotelian doctrine of hylomorphism holds that those entities that fall under it are compounds of matter (hulē) and form (morphē or eidos). Koslicki argues that a hylomorphic analysis of concrete particular objects is well-equipped to compete with alternative approaches when measured against a wide range of criteria of success. A successful application of the doctrine of hylomorphism to the special case of (...) concrete particular objects, however, hinges on how hylomorphists conceive of the matter composing a concrete particular object, its form, and the hylomorphic relations which hold between a matter-form compound, its matter and its form. Through the detailed answers to these questions Koslicki develops in this book, matter-form compounds, despite their metaphysical complexity, emerge as occupying the privileged ontological status traditionally associated with substances, due in particular to their high degree of unity. (shrink)