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Full Idea
Thomas Reid said that an agent's causing something involves a fundamentally different kind of causation from inanimate causing.
Gist of Idea
Reid said that agent causation is a unique type of causation
Source
report of Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 1: Active power [1788]) by Rowland Stout - Action 4 'Agent'
Book Ref
Stout,Rowland: 'Action' [Acumen 2005], p.62
A Reaction
I'm afraid the great philosopher of common sense got it wrong on this one. Introducing a new type of causation into our account of nature is crazy.
| 5211 | An action is voluntary if the limb movements originate in the agent [Aristotle] |
| 5221 | Deliberation ends when the starting-point of an action is traced back to the dominant part of the self [Aristotle] |
| 20051 | Reid said that agent causation is a unique type of causation [Reid, by Stout,R] |
| 20054 | There has to be a brain event which is not caused by another event, but by the agent [Chisholm] |
| 20015 | Freedom of action needs the agent to identify with their reason for acting [Frankfurt, by Wilson/Schpall] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 20052 | If you don't mention an agent, you aren't talking about action [Stout,R] |
| 20050 | Most philosophers see causation as by an event or state in the agent, rather than the whole agent [Stout,R] |