Between Private and Public Sectors

This article validates Simon Kuznets’ argument that minorities prefer the private sector to the public sector in order to avoid discrimination. Based on new archival findings, comparative interethnic research shows that majority Greek civil engineers in the interwar years developed close, interlocking relations with the government and national institutions, which elevated their socio-professional status. Despite the absence of anti-Jewish legislation, this process effectively excluded equally qualified Jewish engineers from Greek-controlled power networks and employment. The Greek nationalistic climate of the times permeated the civil engineers’ professional associations and Greece's one higher educational institution (National Technical University of Athens) of engineering. As the professional networks consolidated to protect their interests, Jewish civil engineers and architects, employers and employees alike, were effectively shut out with no possibility of benefitting from professional integration or association with the mainstream community of civil engineers. Jewish civil engineers were, therefore, channelled into restricting their services to Jewish clients and community projects. However, with the newly developing large-scale armaments industries in the 1930s, Jews opted to train as chemical, mechanical, and electrical engineers to fill positions in family-owned firms (as did their fellow Greeks), and also found employment in lower paying jobs that Greek engineers considered unattractive in state-owned facilities.     

MIGRANT DOMESTIC CAREWORKERS: Between the Public and the Private in Catholic Social Teaching

This essay argues that Catholic (magisterial) social teaching's division of ethics into public and private creates a structural lacuna which makes it almost impossible to envision a truly just situation for migrant domestic careworkers (MDCs) within the current horizon of Catholic social thought. Drawing on a variety of sociological studies, I conclude that it is easy for MDCs to “disappear” between two countries, two families, and, finally, two sets of ethical norms. If the magisterium genuinely wishes Catholic ethicists to address the plight of these migrant women, normative Catholic social teaching must pay more attention to household sociological realities and more fully absorb the feminist critique of the sharp line between the public and the private, between care and paid work.     

Philosophy of Education in the Nordic Countries

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

Luria's Neuropsychological Evaluation in the Nordic Countries

The publication of Luria's Neuropsychological Investigation (LNI) by Christensen in 1975 introduced Luria's evaluation procedures to worldwide neuropsychology. The LNI demonstrated the benefit of a thorough qualitative analysis of an individual patient's functioning as well as the usefulness of a comprehensive theory of brain functioning. This article reviews the experiences that led to the development of the LNI, discusses its use and extension in Scandinavian countries, and presents clinical and research applications of the LNI in diagnosis and rehabilitation. A series of case examples provides justification and validity for the continued use of the LNI and related procedures. Discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the LNI and consideration of possible modifications of the procedures and interpretative methods provide the rationale for continued development of Luria's approach.     

Doctoral Dissertations in the Nordic Countries 1999

First, in order to understand historically how the formative beliefs about Jesus emerged, one must begin with the interpretations of Jesus' death, as Dahl so clearly pointed out. Second, the “quest of the historical Jesus” in all its varieties suffers from the fallacies of a peculiarly modern conception of human identity, which has now been abandoned in many areas of social science and critical theory. In our age we will understand the identity of Jesus in the early church better if we adopt a social model of the self and conceive of identity not as essence but as transaction and process. Third, the process by which Jesus' identity was formed in the communities of his followers was at its heart an interpretive process.     

信仰和知识之间的宗教——德里达与宗教

世界的意义存在于世界之外。——维特根斯坦:《逻辑哲学论》在今天这个经常以宗教名义各行其是的纷乱世界,如何能够不割断哲学传统进行宗教思考?这是德里达在《信仰与知识》!"中要探讨解决的问题。德里达其实很早就开始对宗教进行思考。宗教问题成为他深入运用他的解构策略的重