Intelligibility and the Guise of the Good

According to the Guise of the Good, an agent only does for a reason what she sees as good. One of the main motivations for the view is its apparent ability to explain why action for a reason must be intelligible to its agent, for on this view, an action is intelligible just in case it seems good. This motivation has come under criticism in recent years. Most notably, Kieran Setiya has argued that merely seeing one’s action as good does not suffice to make the action intelligible. In this paper, I show that this objection has bite only because the Guise of the Good’s theory of intelligibility has yet seen little sustained articulation. Properly understood, this theory holds that an action is intelligible to an agent only if it appears to them to possess some substantive evaluative property. I then argue that this response to the objection has a significant implication for contemporary Guise of the Good theories, for it shows that the currently ascendant version of the theory, the attitudinal theory, cannot avail itself of the intelligibility motivation

'The Black Book: John Berryman's Holocaust Requiem'

This essay looks in detail at an unfinished cycle of Holocaust poems called The Black Book that was begun by the American poet John Berryman in 1948. The essay includes close readings of three published poems and analysis of unpublished material from the Berryman archive. It also considers Berryman's use of Holocaust testimony. Drawing on Susan Gubar's concept of 'proxy-witnessing', this essay argues that Berryman's unfinished cycle highlights some of the distinct challenges of Holocaust representation, occupying an uneasy middle ground between language and silence

'Black Phones': postmodern poetics in the Holocaust poetry of Sylvia Plath

This essay offers a fresh perspective on the Holocaust verse of the American poet Sylvia Plath, taking issue with the accusation that in her poetry she uses the Holocaust as a metaphor to figure her own personal pain. This essay offers close readings of the eccentric monologue 'Lady Lazarus' and the 'German trilogy' of 'Little Fugue', 'Daddy' and 'The Munich Mannequins'. Paying particular attention to the recurring motif of the 'black phone', this essay argues that Plath's Holocaust verse offers a self-aware response to the genocide that is identifiably postmodern in its innovative, self-reflexive treatment of history

Current-free double-layer formation in a high-density helicon discharge

A strong, current-free, electric double-layer with eΦ/kTe∼3 and a thickness of less than 50 debye lengths has been experimentally observed in an expanding, high-density helicon sustained rf (13.56-MHz) discharge. The rapid potential decrease is associated with the “neck” of the vacuum vessel, where the glass source tube joins the aluminumdiffusionchamber, and is only observed when the argon gas pressure is less than about 0.5 mTorr. The upstream electron temperature Te appears 25% greater than the downstream Te, and there is a density hole on the downstream edge. This experiment differs from others in that the potentials are self-consistently generated by the plasma itself, and there is no current flowing through an external circuit. The plasma electrons are heated by the rf fields in the source, provide the power to maintain the double-layer, and hence accelerate ions created in the source out into the diffusionchamber

Employee Attitudinal Effects of Perceived Performance Appraisal Use

This research investigates how employee perceptions of performance appraisal use relate to employee satisfaction with the performance appraisal and with the appraiser—the employees’ immediate supervisor. Employee perceptions that appraisals were used for development positively associated with both attitudinal variables, after controlling for justice perceptions, performance, and demographics. Perceptions of PA use for evaluation did not show a significant relationship with either employee attitude. Implications of these findings are discussed

Desegregating HRM: A Review and Synthesis of Micro and Macro Human Resource Management Research

Since the early 1980’s the field of HRM has seen the independent evolution of two independent subfields (strategic and functional), which we believe is dysfunctional to the field as a whole. We propose a typology of HRM research based on two dimensions: Level of analysis (individual/ group or organization) and number of practices (single or multiple). We use this framework to review the recent research in each of the four sub-areas. We argue that while significant progress has been made within each area, the potential for greater gains exists by looking across each area. Toward this end we suggest some future research directions based on a more integrative view of HRM. We believe that both areas can contribute significantly to each other resulting in a more profound impact on the field of HRM than each can contribute independently