Agent Causation: Before and After the Ontological Turn

Imagine Ludwig has a cup of tea for breakfast. He
pours it; he eats his egg until it seems to him that the tea
should have the right temperature; he moves his hand to
the cup, puts his fingers at the handle, and then, careful
not to spill anything, he does something with his arm;
namely, he raises it, and if all goes well he then drinks the
tea without burning his lips.
The rising of Ludwig"s arm surely has a cause. But
what is the cause? Defenders of agent causation, such as
Thomas Reid (1788), Richard Taylor (1966), Roderick
Chisholm (1976a), and many more recent authors (see
Swinburne 1997, ch. 5; Thorp 1980; Meixner 1999; Clarke
1996; O'Connor 2000) have argued that the rising of
Ludwig"s arm is caused by Ludwig himself. Some events
are caused, not by other events, but by concrete things, by
substances, more specifically by intentional agents.