Identity of Spirit and Nature: Schelling and Hegel on the True Standpoint of Philosophy in 1801

The talk addresses the relation between the two idealist thinkers F.W.J. Schelling and G.W.F. Hegel in their first joint public appearance in 1801. Thereby, the paper puts forward a twofold claim: On the one hand, both philosophers share the assumption that the true standpoint of philosophy may only be determined as the absolute identity of spirit and nature. On the other hand, however, both differ quite fundamentally in how precisely to understand this principle of absolute identity. Schelling conceives of the true principle of philosophy as an identity which is, in its essence, absolutely free of any difference. Hegel, however, puts forward a notion of identity as ‘identity of identity and non-identity’, that is to say, as an identity essentially structured by difference. The talk unfolds these different notions of identity in Schelling’s “Presentation of my System of Philosophy” and Hegel’s “The Difference between Fichte’s and Schelling’s Philosophy”. Thereby, the talk seeks to show that the main reason for this distinction between the two thinkers is a difference in their critique of their predecessor J.G. Fichte, the ‘founder’ of German Idealism. Schelling, around 1800, criticizes Fichte’s principle of the ‘absolute I’ as being a one-sided, merely subjective notion. He complements Fichte’s (idealist) philosophy of the I with a second (realist) philosophy of nature, and unites both in the standpoint of absolute identity. Hegel fully affirms this stance taken by Schelling, yet he at the same time develops a specifically systematic critique of Fichte on his one. Namely, he criticizes the fact that Fichte thinks of the I as a pure identity (the ‘I = I’) and thus fails in explaining difference (the non-I) in starting form this principle. Although addressed merely at Fichte, this critique structurally also applies to Schelling’s understanding of absolute identity in 1801, albeit tacitly and inexplicitly. Finally, the paper indicates that this early disagreement already foreshadows Schelling’s and Hegel’s explicit dispute, taking place some years later, surrounding Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit of 1807 and his polemics against an absolute identity in which ‘all cows are black’.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

The Next Generation of Entrepreneurs

A.R. (Venky) Venkatachalam, Ph.D. (Associate Dean of Academic Programs & Professor of Information Systems) and I believe that the steps to insure future entrepreneurial success have not been taken; therefore my intention is to provide quality insight regarding the importance of embracing our next generation of entrepreneurs

Accountability, Immunity, & Impunity: How the UN Avoids Justice in Haiti

Following the devastating 2010 earthquake, the world’s largest cholera epidemic broke out on the island of Haiti, taking the lives of an estimated 8,500 and continuing to afflict more than 685,000. Scientific analysis undeniably traced the cholera strain to the improper disposal of waste and negligent screening standards of United Nations (UN) Nepalese Peacekeeping troops, garnering calls for the UN to take responsibility and provide reparations for the outbreak. Despite legal attempts on behalf of the victims, the Peacekeeping troops and the UN as a whole have escaped accountability for their crimes. This paper comprehensively evaluates the accountability literature to demonstrate that the interpretation of the UN’s immunity clause directly contradicts the humanitarian norms and international laws the UN was created to uphold, creating a disparity between the intentions of the institution and the actions that result. I argue that the immunity clause has shaped an institutional culture of impunity, one in which the lack of legal recourse for victims allows the UN to shirk basic responsibilities and abuse host populations. This in turn has set a precedent of immunity for today’s international sphere, wherein most IGOs (intergovernmental organizations) and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have modeled their own immunity clauses after the UN’s, leading to a global culture of legal immunity. This paper ultimately demands the reform of the immunity clause before discussing potential accountability mechanisms, including the enforcement of SOFAs (Status of Forces Agreements) and the trial of the UN in national courts, in order to reconcile peacekeeping actions with international law and attain justice for the Haitian people

Nutrition, Education and Development: The Case of Vitamin D Milk

Micronutrient deficiencies that reduce the health of children risk impeding human capital investments critical for economic development. While the developed world has largely eliminated the most pernicious of these deficiencies, they remain widespread in poorer countries. This study looks at the effects of the introduction of fortified milk, which contributed to the decline of one such micronutrient deficiency in the United States: vitamin D. At the time of vitamin D milk’s introduction in the early 1930s, vitamin D deficiency, manifested most prominently in the form of rickets, affected large numbers of children. Using previously unexamined historical sources, I compile and introduce an original dataset describing the rollout of vitamin D fortified milk across the United States throughout the decade. I then use this dataset to examine the impact of fortified milk on schooling. The gradual expansion of vitamin D milk, along with natural variation in susceptibility to vitamin D deficiency due to geographic and racial factors, permits the identification of fortification’s impact from other regional and temporal trends. Using a difference-in-difference-in-difference (DDD) estimator, I find that the availability of vitamin D milk increased schooling for the group at highest risk for vitamin D deficiency: African-American children from cities with low sunlight. A variety of sensitivity tests supports the validity of the results. They indicate that large scale food fortification initiatives merit further consideration from economists and policy makers concerned with achieving development outcomes.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Isotropic Gaussian random fields on the sphere: Regularity, fast simulation and stochastic partial differential equations

Isotropic Gaussian random fields on the sphere are characterized by Karhunen-Lo\`{e}ve expansions with respect to the spherical harmonic functions and the angular power spectrum. The smoothness of the covariance is connected to the decay of the angular power spectrum and the relation to sample H\"{o}lder continuity and sample differentiability of the random fields is discussed. Rates of convergence of their finitely truncated Karhunen-Lo\`{e}ve expansions in terms of the covariance spectrum are established, and algorithmic aspects of fast sample generation via fast Fourier transforms on the sphere are indicated. The relevance of the results on sample regularity for isotropic Gaussian random fields and the corresponding lognormal random fields on the sphere for several models from environmental sciences is indicated. Finally, the stochastic heat equation on the sphere driven by additive, isotropic Wiener noise is considered, and strong convergence rates for spectral discretizations based on the spherical harmonic functions are proven.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/14-AAP1067 in the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org