Chapter 1:
The Feminist Task of Analysing Female Authorship
Feminists have worked tirelessly to ensure that women's writings are not dismissed as being authored by men or as not really existing, thereby ensuring that women authors are counted and acknowledged in history. Many women down the ages have published anonymously, often as a way of circumventing discrimination and censorship. Therefore, anonymity is a perennial problem for feminist historians within various disciplines (such as philosophy, literature, art) when attempting to unearth numerous women authors. Furthermore, anonymity is by no means an indication that the woman in question is not the author. As a general approach, given that publishing anonymously was far more common among women in the past (and possibly still is) than it was among men, the probability of an anonymous work being a woman's is far more likely than it being authored by a man.
Hence, on my feminist stance, it is better to err on the side of caution and acknowledge the high probability, or at the very least, the possibility, that an anonymous work was authored by a woman.
More specifically, I shall focus on the scholarly debate surrounding the issue of whether Lady Mary Shepherd authored two or three treatises because it provides relevant background to my general assumptions and interpretation of Lady Mary Shepherd.
So far, I have focused on Shepherd’s 1824 'Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect'1 and her 1827 'Essays on the Perception of an External Universe and Other Subjects Connected with the Doctrine of Causation'2, in particular the latter. However, there is an on-going academic debate whether there is a third treatise authored by her, published anonymously in 1819, with the rather verbose title: 'Enquiry Respecting the Relation of Cause and Effect: in which the Theories of Professors Brown, and Mr. Hume, are Examined; with a Statement of Such Observations as are Calculated to Shew the Inconsistency of these Theories; and from which a New Theory is Deduced, More Consonant to Facts and Experience. Also a New Theory of the Earth, Deduced from Geological Observations'3. Shepherd’s 1824 treatise4 was published anonymously but we are confident that this work is hers because she refers to it explicitly in her 1827 treatise5, which was published under her name. Whereas the authorship of the 1819 treatise6 has become an open question because, although it has been considered one of her works by some, she did not cross refer to it in her other writings so there is less certainty surrounding this 1819 treatise. Nevertheless, the anonymously published 1824 treatise7 shows that Shepherd did choose to remain anonymous earlier in her publishing. So, I maintain that it is plausible that she may also be the author behind this anonymous 1819 treatise8, released just five years before the anonymous work we know to be hers, the 1824 treatise9.
I have not analysed this 1819 treatise10 in my papers11 so far, or in my book12 Research Thoughts on…Lady Mary Shepherd volume 1, simply because there are so many detailed and fascinating arguments Shepherd makes in her 182413 and 182714 treatises which are universally recognised as her work, that I decided those constitute a solid foundation for my interpretation of her philosophy. In addition, on the 28th April 2018, when I wrote and released the content of my campaign and petition for a statue of Lady Mary Shepherd in Edinburgh, Scotland15, I didn’t refer to her 1819 treatise16 so as not to confuse people because it would entail explaining the whole authorship debate. Therefore, I simply mentioned the two non-controversial treatises. In addition, Shepherd also authored some short works17. There is consensus that she is the author of these, although one was published without her consent and questions are now being raised as to whether there are some undiscovered writings by Shepherd18.
Mistaken Attribution? Boyle's Hypotheses and Arguments
In line with my feminist stance above, I suggest that it is preferable to approach the anonymously written 1819 treatise as a work that could potentially be a book Shepherd authored, than to run the risk of potentially erasing a woman's publication. I shall argue for this by examining the evidence available and by structuring my argument as a response to Boyle's 2020 paper 'A Mistaken Attribution to Lady Mary Shepherd'19 because much of this scholarly debate on the authorship of the 1819 treatise has been outlined concisely here by Boyle.
Broadly speaking, there are two approaches to the authorship debate. On one side, there are those who err on the side of caution and give the 1819 treatise the benefit of the doubt and say it is likely to be written by Shepherd20. I favour this approach, one which is along the lines of how Boyle describes McRobert’s and Bolton’s position21. On the other side, there are those, namely Atherton and Deborah Boyle, who for various reasons discount the anonymous 1819 treatise as not being Shepherd’s work22.
In her paper, Boyle23 aims to discredit the notion that the 1819 treatise could plausibly be the third and earliest treatise by Shepherd and further suggests that there may be an extant early essay by Shepherd, possibly including arguments concerning Priestly, that is yet to be discovered. To situate my philosophical research within this wider context of Shepherd’s writings, in the following chapters, I shall examine and evaluate Boyle’s two main claims which lie at the heart of the current debate.
First I shall start with Boyle’s second claim (concerning the possibility of an undiscovered manuscript essay) in my chapter titled 'An Undiscovered Manuscript by Shepherd?', before moving on to her first claim (the authorship of an anonymous treatise published in 1819) in my chapter titled 'Who Authored the 1819 Treatise?'
References:
1Shepherd, Mary. An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect : Controverting the Doctrine of Mr. Hume, Concerning the Nature of That Relation, with Observations upon the Opinions of Dr. Brown and Mr. Lawrence Connected with the Same Subject. London, United Kingdom: Printed for T. Hookham, 1824.
https://archive.org/stream/essayuponrelatio00shepiala#page/n7/mode/2up.
2Shepherd, Mary. 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.
3Anon. An Enquiry Respecting the Relation of Cause and Effect: in which the Theories of Professors Brown, and Mr. Hume, are Examined; with a Statement of Such Observations as are Calculated to Shew the Inconsistency of these Theories; and from which a New Theory is Deduced, More Consonant to Facts and Experience. Also a New Theory of the Earth, Deduced from Geological Observations. Edinburgh: James Ballantyne. 1819
4Shepherd An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect
5Shepherd Essays on the Perception of an External Universe and Other Subjects Connected with the Doctrine of Causation.
6Anon. An Enquiry Respecting the Relation of Cause and Effect & New Theory of the Earth, Deduced from Geological Observations
7Shepherd An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect
8Anon. An Enquiry Respecting the Relation of Cause and Effect & New Theory of the Earth, Deduced from Geological Observations
9Shepherd An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect
10Anon. An Enquiry Respecting the Relation of Cause and Effect & New Theory of the Earth, Deduced from Geological Observations
11Kaucky, Liba: conference abstracts and papers to date:
Is Hume's Argument Against Miracles Flawed? (2016)
Available at:
Lady Mary Shepherd on the Afterlife (2016-17)
Available at:
Was Lady Mary Shepherd the First Analytic Philosopher? (2017)
Available at:
12Kaucky, Liba. ‘Research Thoughts on…Lady Mary Shepherd – Volume 1' (ebook published 2018)
Available at:
13Shepherd An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect
14Shepherd Essays on the Perception of an External Universe and Other Subjects Connected with the Doctrine of Causation.
15Kaucky, Liba. 'Time for a Statue of Lady Mary Shepherd, First Scottish Female Philosopher' (28th April 2018)
Petition available at:
16Anon. An Enquiry Respecting the Relation of Cause and Effect & New Theory of the Earth, Deduced from Geological Observations
17Observations of Lady Mary Shepherd on the "First Lines of the Human Mind"', in Parriana: or Notices of the Rev. Samuel Parr, L.L.; and 'Lady Mary Shepherd's Metaphysics', Fraser's Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 30 (July 1832), pp. 697–708.
18Boyle, D., 'A Mistaken Attribution to Lady Mary Shepherd' Journal of Modern Philosophy, 2(1): 5 pp1-4 [in open access download, last downloaded 4th April 2022] (June) 2020.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.32881/jomp.100
Available at:
https://jmphil.org/articles/10.32881/jomp.100/
19Ibid
20Ibid
21Ibid
22Ibid
23Ibid
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.