ABSTRACT
In the twentieth century philosophy took a physical turn. Sometimes it is argued that it is a conceptual truth that anything done for a reason or purpose has a physical cause. Instead of duplicating the world of physics to explain mind, philosophers made it include mind. Modern philosophers seem to favour a Humean view. There are no minds, only sensations and beliefs which are somehow self-intimating, like pictures contemplating themselves. Our movements are caused by physical events in the brain, firings of neurones, and these have prior physical causes stretching back in time to before we were born or conceived. Purposive movements of parts of the body are all exercises of acquired skill. The traditional belief that actions are caused by thoughts, though it involves some confusion about causes, seems to most people reasonable enough.
