Shepherd vol 1 ebook Part 3 Introduction

Part 3: Shepherd on the Afterlife 

Introduction

The overall focus of part 3 is centred around and combs through Lady Mary Shepherd’s arguments for the possibility of an afterlife in her second treatise “Essays on the Perception of an External Universe and Other Subjects Connected with the Doctrine of Causation”[i]. This book was published in 1827 but was possibly written much earlier. As far as I am aware, there has been no specific research to date on Shepherd’s view of the afterlife. I find that, in this topic, she particularly reveals how her concept of God and religion guides and provides a foundation for her philosophical views and inspires her to refine the accepted philosophical arguments of her era. My stance shall be that Shepherd finds religion, God and her Christianity a good starting point and a source of inspiration that guides and underpins her philosophy. I shall support this view by evaluating some sections of pertinent textual evidence[ii]. I shall try to clarify Shepherd’s arguments by focusing on and unpacking her analogies[iii], such as the compass and the worm on a leaf, which shed light on her abstract, theoretical approach to the afterlife. I think Shepherd adopts this approach because she is arguing that concepts of God, the soul and the afterlife are beyond one’s sensory and perceptual experience but are within one’s rational capacity to reason through[iv].

In chapter 9, I shall put Shepherd’s notions of an afterlife into context by outlining my stance on aspects of the philosophical framework within which Shepherd expresses her views and constructs her arguments. I shall build on and attempt to further Martha Bolton’s view of Shepherd as a ‘sceptical realist’[v], especially in relation to Shepherd’s arguments about perceptual knowledge. However, I interpret Shepherd as a Rationalist style of Realist philosopher who, although sceptical at times, overall is not a sceptical philosopher. In chapter 10, I shall unpack her analogies and arguments regarding the metaphysical possibility of the afterlife. In chapter 11, I shall flesh out Shepherd’s exploration of an afterlife by analysing her views on Immortality and Eternity. In chapter 12, I explore Shepherd’s theist approach to philosophy. Shepherd shows that, just as in her example of the compass guiding the ship north, the devout mind can grasp the idea of God and an afterlife and believe these ideas to be true, despite the fact that details about God and the afterlife are beyond our human intellect and certainly beyond our sensory and perceptual experience. I shall also discuss how her philosophy and methodology relate to the science of death and the afterlife.

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[i] Mary Shepherd, Essays on the Perception of an External Universe and Other Subjects Connected with the Doctrine of Causation (Piccadilly, London, United Kingdom: John hatchard and Son., 1827), https://archive.org/stream/essaysonpercepti00shep/#page/n7/mode/2up.

[ii] Shepherd.

[iii] Shepherd.

[iv] Shepherd.

[v] M. Bolton, ‘Causality, Physical and Mathematical Induction: The Necessitarian and “skeptical” Theory of Lady Mary Shepherd’ (British Society for the History of Philosophy Annual Conference: Causation 1500-2000, University of York, 2008).