Mary Shepherd

Abstract

Mary Shepherd (née Primrose, b. 1777–d. 1847) is the author of at least two books and three essays published during her lifetime. One of the key focuses of her work rests on the issue of causation. In 1824, the first book, An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect, Controverting the Doctrine of Mr. Hume, concerning the Nature of the Relation; with Observations upon the Opinions of Dr. Brown and Mr. Lawrence, Connected with the Same Subject (ERCE) is published. In ERCE she argues against a Humean notion of causation as constant conjunction that cause and effect are necessarily connected, and that causation requires the causal interaction (‘mixing’) of at least two partial causes. Shepherd returns to the issue of causation, employing the insights from her first book, in the first part of her second book, Essays on the Perception of an External Universe, and Other Subjects Connected with the Doctrine of Causation (EPEU), from 1827. In EPEU she primarily argues that there is a continually existing, mind-independent, and external world. In the second part of this book, we find fourteen essays that discuss a variety of topics ranging from criticizing Berkeley’s mistakes, to discussing various issues in the philosophy of mind and perception. These topics are also the focus in the essays published in 1828. Her last essay, “Lady Mary Shepherd’s Metaphysics” (LMSM) from 1832, contains a dense summary of her metaphysics, which is defended against the criticism of John Fearn (an autodidact and former naval officer). Shepherd’s work seems to have been well-regarded in her day—or at least other participants of the so-called republic of letters were far from indifferent toward it. Her daughter, Mary Brandreth, even writes that William Whewell, a philosopher of science, used one of her books when he was teaching at Cambridge. From the mid-nineteenth century onward, however, Shepherd’s work comes to share the story of most women philosophers and her works drop from view for over a century. It was only around the twentieth century that scholars such as Margaret Atherton, Martha Bolton, and Jennifer McRobert started the work of recovering Shepherd. In the subsequent decades, some articles and overviews were published. Those are mostly concerned with her notion of causation, her criticism of Berkely and Hume or with establishing that she ought to be taken seriously as a philosopher. It is only more recent years, from 2017 onward, that have seen an exponential growth in the philosophical secondary literature on Shepherd. While her notion of causation attracts a lot of attention, as do her criticisms of Berkeley, Hume, and Reid, her metaphysics and epistemology as well as her philosophy of mind now garner significant scholarly engagement. This article, moreover, provides an overview on the primary sources, modern editions, overview articles, and anthologies that are currently available.