Mary Shepherd
Reason, not habit, tells us that nothing can begin to exist without a cause – and we really do know an outside world exists.
Placement
Scottish philosopher: against Hume she argued that reason, not custom, tells us that nothing can begin to exist without a cause; against Berkeley she defended our knowledge of an external world.
Key ideas
- Causal principle known by reason
- Against Hume on causation
- Knowledge of the external world
Criticism
Criticizes 2
George Berkeley
criticised
Against Berkeley, Shepherd held that reason infers external objects as continuing causes of our sensations (Essays on the Perception of an External Universe, 1827). M. Shepherd, Essays on the Perception of an External Universe (1827); SEP “Mary Shepherd”
Evidence: AI draft
George Berkeley › 1685–1753
David Hume
criticised
Against Hume, Shepherd held that reason, not custom, shows that nothing begins to exist without a cause (Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect, 1824). M. Shepherd, An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect (1824); SEP “Mary Shepherd”
Evidence: AI draft
David Hume › 1711–1776
Works
Against Hume: that an object cannot begin to exist uncaused is a truth of reason, not a habit of mind.
How we come to know a continuing external world – with a critique of Berkeley.
Position
Shepherd’s first book attacks Hume’s account of causation. Hume held that we cannot know a priori that every event has a cause and that our belief in causal connection is only habit. Shepherd replies that reason itself shows the contrary: if something began to exist without a cause it would have to produce itself, which is contradictory; so the principle that nothing can bring itself into existence is a necessary truth. Her second book asks, against Berkeley, how we know an external world: unperceived objects are inferred because sensations need causes that are not themselves sensations. Hers is a realist, rationalist reply to the Scottish empiricists.
Life & context
Mary Shepherd (1777–1847), born Lady Mary Primrose at Barnbougle Castle near Edinburgh, was educated at home. She married the barrister Henry John Shepherd in 1808 and lived in London, where she took part in intellectual society and published two books of philosophy in 1824 and 1827, as well as articles. Her work was discussed by Whewell and others in her lifetime, then forgotten until its recent rediscovery.
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