Abstract
Lady Mary Shepherd’s critique of Hume’s account of causation, his worries about knowledge of matters of fact, and the contention that it is possible for the course of nature to spontaneously change relies primarily on three premises, two of which – that objects are merely bundles of qualities and that the qualities of an object are individuated by the causal powers contributed by those qualities – anticipate contemporary metaphysical views in ways that she should be getting credit for. The remaining premise – that it is impossible for an object to begin to exist uncaused – seems more old fashioned. I argue that Shepherd can do without her old-fashioned premise and that she provides the materials for arguing that her remaining premises demonstrate a stronger anti-Humeanism than is maintained even by the contemporary representatives of those views, even though she may have to concede more to Humeanism than she would like.
References
Aquinas, T. c. 1268/1932. Quaestiones Disputatae De Poentia Dei: Dispusted Questions on the Power of God. The English Dominican Fathers, trans. Westminster, MD: The Newman Press.Search in Google Scholar
Aristotle. 350 BC./2014. “Physics.” In The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, Volume 1, edited by J. Barnes, 315–446. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.2307/j.ctt5vjv4w.12Search in Google Scholar
Atherton, M. 1994. Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.Search in Google Scholar
Beebee, H. 2011. “Necessary Connections and the Problem of Induction.” Noûs 45 (3):504–27.10.1111/j.1468-0068.2010.00821.xSearch in Google Scholar
Bolton, M. B. 2010. “Causality and Causal Induction: The Necessitarian Theory of Lady Mary Shepherd.” In Causation and Modern Philosophy, edited by K. Allen, and T. Stoneham, 242–61. KY: Routledge: Florency.Search in Google Scholar
Campbell, K. 1981. “The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 6 (1):477–88.10.1111/j.1475-4975.1981.tb00453.xSearch in Google Scholar
Castañeda, H.-N. 1974. “Thinking and the Structure of the World.” Philosophia 4 (1):3–40.10.1007/BF02381514Search in Google Scholar
Colby, Alyssa. (2014) untitled manuscript.10.1001/jama.2013.279334Search in Google Scholar
Elder, C. L. 1994. “Laws, Natures, and Contingent Necessities.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (3):649–67.10.2307/2108585Search in Google Scholar
Ellis, B. 2001. Scientific Essentialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Harré, R., and E. H. Madden. 1975. Causal Powers: A Theory of Natural Necessity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar
Heil, J. 2003. From an Ontological Point of View. Oxford: Clarendon Press.10.1093/0199259747.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Hume, D. 1748/2007. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1093/owc/9780199549900.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. 1698/1989. “On Nature Itself”. Philosophical Essays, 155–66. Hackett: Indianapolis.Search in Google Scholar
Locke, J. 1689/1996. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Kenneth P. Winkler, ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.10.1093/oseo/instance.00018020Search in Google Scholar
MacIntosh, J. 1995. “St. Thomas on Angelic Time and Motion.” Thomist: a Speculative Quarterly Review 59 (4):547–75.10.1353/tho.1995.0001Search in Google Scholar
MacIntosh, Jack. (manuscript) The Arguments of Aquinas. (unpublished)Search in Google Scholar
MacIsaac, A. 2013. Synchronicity and Sensation: The Causal Theory of Lady Mary Shepherd. MA Thesis. Carleton University.Search in Google Scholar
McRobert, J. 2014. Mary Shepherd and the Causal Relation. http://philpapers.org/archive/MCRMSA.pdf. Accessed February 26, 2016Search in Google Scholar
Paoletti, C. 2011. “Restoring Necessary Connections: Lady Mary Shepherd on Hume and the Early Nineteenth Century Debate on Causality.” Castelli Di Yale 11:47–59.Search in Google Scholar
Paul, L. A. 2006. “Coincidence as Overlap.” Noûs 40 (4):623–59.10.1111/j.1468-0068.2006.00627.xSearch in Google Scholar
Pitt, D. (manuscript). “Realist Bundle Theory.” http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/dpitt/Realist%20Bundle%20Theory2.pdf Accessed February 26, 2016.Search in Google Scholar
Priestley, J. 1782. Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit. London: Piearson and Rollason.Search in Google Scholar
Russell, B. 1940. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.Search in Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. 2001. “The Individuation of Tropes.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (2):247–57.10.1080/713659225Search in Google Scholar
Shepherd, M. 1824/2012. An Essay Upon the Relation of Cause and Effect, Controverting the Doctrine of Mr. Hume, Concerning the Nature of That Relation. Lenox, MA: HardPress Publishing.Search in Google Scholar
Shoemaker, S. 2003. “Causality and Properties.” In his Identity, Cause, and Mind: Philosophical Essays, 206–33. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Sparshott, F. E. 1975. “In Defence of Kemp Smith”. Hume Studies 1 (2):66–9Search in Google Scholar
Strawson, G. 2015. “Humeanism.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (1):96–102.10.1017/apa.2014.13Search in Google Scholar
Strawson, G. 2002. “David Hume: Objects and Power.” In Reading Hume on Human Understanding, edited by P. Millican, 231–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.4324/9780203078235-17Search in Google Scholar
Towl, B. N. 2010. “Spurious Causal Kinds: A Problem for the Causal-Power Conception of Kinds.” Philosophia 38:217–23.10.1007/s11406-009-9209-1Search in Google Scholar
©2016 by De Gruyter