ABSTRACT
Of the three philosophical contributors to this chapter, two have written contributions which present themselves as being essentially self-explanatory, that is to say as standing in no need of any especial introduction. The great majority of contemporary analytic philosophers have probably been brought up to take what is known as a ‘problems approach’ to philosophy. Descartes is famous for having sought to base the whole ordered structure of the people knowledge on foundations of such certainty that no-one who contemplated them could fail to recognize them as being secure beyond all possible doubt. Modern Humean-type analyses of the nature of causal explanation and associated Humean-type doctrines of the compatibility between causation and free intentional action have, of course, become extremely sophisticated.
