Evolution of "Agent-Causal" Theory in Modern Free Will Debates

In this paper, we present a historical and philosophical review of the key agent-cause theories of the past century, and the most significant contemporary research on this topic. Despite the fact that at the moment there is a large number of studies on free will, in most of them the descriptions of the agent approach are rather fragmentary. Within the framework of Russian philosophy, a detailed study of this kind has not been carried out before, and a number of key figures that will be considered in this paper are mostly unknown between the Russian readers, which increases the relevance of the study. The main goal of the work is the reconstruction of the logic of the development of the agent-cause theory in modern analytical philosophy. In the course of the study, key figures, theories and arguments which made the most significant contribution to the development of an agent theory of free will. The main figures in the camp of modern supporters of agent theories from our point of view are R. Chizom, R. Taylor, T. O'connor and R. Clark, whose theories were analyzed in the framework of this paper. Also in the study, was made an analysis of the concept proposed by Thomas Reed. Within the framework of this work, a detailed study of the history of the development of agent-cause theories in analytic philosophy was conducted for the first time in the russian philosophical literature. Also in this paper were revealed the general tendency of development of agent approaches of the second half of the XXth century, the beginning of the 21st century.