Can Reference Be Naturalized？ Notes toward an Integrational Causality

As physicalisms of various kinds have faced difficulties in recent years, the time has come to explore possible alternatives, one of which is yinyang ontology. A yinyang theorist is expected to provide a plausible account of causation to replace the traditional notion of causation. The present paper is critical of the Humean tradition, which understands the relata of causal relations in terms of passive materiality so that humans use referential terms to describe causal relations constructively. But an alternative notion of reference is available according to which causal relata are active processors of the information with which they interact. On this latter view, humans use referential language to describe the structure in which the relata interrelate themselves so that the structure can be understood hermeneutically. Reference on this view is naturalized. In this article, I advance two arguments for this thesis, one concerning the informationality of states and the other related to the essentiality of properties.

20世纪泰国社会华人姓名的泰化嬗变

华人是泰国社会重要的组成部分,他们的姓名问题对社会稳定有重要影响,因此一直是泰国政府所关注的问题之一。本文试图通过泰国华人姓名泰化的嬗变过程,来管窥20世纪华人在泰国社会所处境遇的变化。华人姓名的不断泰化,一方面缘于泰国政府长期不懈地坚持对华人的同化政策;另一方面也与当地华人对泰国社会的认同感不断增强密切相关。此外,面对政府的归化政策,华人也通过双名制度等方式保持自身文化的相对独立性。