Reasons that cause agents to act in the physical world would be conceived as causes in a very different sense than ordinary physical causes

Hempel’s argument against empathy has certainly not gone unchallenged. Within the philosophy of history, Dray (1957), following Collingwood, has argued that empathy plays an epistemically irreducible role, since we explain actions in terms of an agent’s reasons. For him, such reason explanations do not appeal to empirical generalizations but to normative principles of actions outlining how a person should act in a particular situation. Similar arguments have been articulated by Jaegwon Kim (1984