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.

苏联分离主义的历史分期和特点研究

分离主义是民族主义的极端表现。民族主义者从开始要求独立的那一刻起,才成为分离主义者。以"整合国家"和"边疆国家"这两个概念及其主要特征为理论基础,能相对有效地厘清苏联政府在边疆地区遏制分离主义的政策。总体而言,苏联建国时期与解体时期才是分离主义的兴起阶段,而在1956年至1961年、1961年至1985年的两个历史阶段期间,民族主义者的行动在体制框架之内;他们从未正式提出各自少数民族地区的独立要求,所以苏联在此期间是民族主义问题,尚未达到分离主义的程度。1956年至1985年是改善国内民族气氛最良好的时期,然而苏联政府错过了这次机会。