Shepherd vol 2 ebook: Chapter 13: Conclusions Drawn on Shepherd's Authorship

Chapter 13: Conclusions Drawn on Shepherd's Authorship

 

In this volume, I have explored the themes of women's authorship, historical feminism, preserving women's history, and philosophical interpretation. This led me into the further themes of materialism, science and theism as I expanded on the 1819 treatise’s anonymous author's research interests and showed the interpretative importance of analysing Shepherd's philosophy in detail, and appreciating not just her overall arguments concerning causation, but also her more narrowly focused arguments about more specific scientific topics and her declared methodological and logical preferences. 

Hence, the overarching theme of this volume is Shepherd's authorship and whether her views on science and materialism helps us discuss her possible authorship of an 1819 treatise and whether it assists our interpretation and understanding of her philosophical arguments, stance and outlook within the other two treatises, published in 1824 and 1827 respectively. 

In Part One, I address my research question of whether it is plausible that Lady Mary Shepherd was indeed the author of a third Treatise, published anonymously in 1819, titled: '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'.

I have taken a strong Feminist stance within my approach to the History of Philosophy and Women's History, arguing that scholars should not deny a woman's authorship unless there is clear and solid historical evidence to support that theory, otherwise this constitutes erasure of women in History and Herstory. In general, I advocate giving the possible female author the benefit of the doubt and leaving it an open question so others can decide for themselves. I also argue that a likely female author should always be credited as a possible author of the work, not be removed and not credited at all from book and library cataloguing details, simply because her authorship may not be proven by all scholars unanimously and beyond all doubt. This, I maintain, is too high a criteria for severely, historically neglected women intellectuals and authors. In the case of Mary Shepherd, I undertook years of thorough research into her disputed authorship and concluded that she is highly likely to be the anonymous author. 

I further this claim in Part 2 by delving into and analysing the philosophical and scientific topics which provide us with textual evidence to support my argument that the themes in the disputed authorship 1819 Treatise are consistent with Shepherd’s later publications. Hence, I refute any claims that the areas of interest in the 1819 treatise provide plausible grounds to discount Shepherd as the true author. Nevertheless, I offset this with the proviso that any historical manuscripts and so on that are apparently suddenly discovered need to be scientifically analysed, dated and verified well before they enter scholarly debate, otherwise academic publishing becomes tainted with irrelevant and invalid arguments about potentially fake works. We scholars, in Philosophy and indeed in any academic discipline, need to be absolutely sure they are genuine originals before beginning to analyse them. 

Indeed, during my research process for writing this volume 2 on Shepherd I was shocked to find that Milne was not the only possible inaccurate credit given to a man for a book Mary Shepherd most certainly wrote. I discovered that, even more flagrantly, a contemporary of Shepherd, a certain John Fearn, has been added alongside Mary Shepherd in the author field of several reputable publishing sources and bookseller outlets for her 1824 treatise. This is simply wrong and unacceptable because it misattributes authorship to a man who never researched or wrote that book. As far as I can see, there has been scholarly silence on this matter. As far as I can gather, there has been no scholarly debate prior to adding his name to her 1824 book, or any reference in academic literature to him being a possible author. Worse still, this is presumably the same John Fearn who, after retiring from his job as a Naval Officer, started attacking and aggressively arguing against Mary Shepherd's metaphysics. Shepherd wrote articles to reply and counter two of his objections. So it is especially outlandish to give the impression that Shepherd and Fearn could have co-authored a book together. 

This goes to show the slippery slope quietly taking place, mostly unchallenged, that is rapidly erasing Mary Shepherd’s body of work on philosophy. First there are claims that she did not author her first publication in 1819, then a man's name appears on her 1824 treatise, implying she is not the sole author of this work. So, as of 2024, in just a few years, two men have been credited with half of Shepherd's Treatises. This possible loss of half of Shepherd's authorship of her Treatises should not be tolerated in academia and elsewhere. No wonder Shepherd was removed from the philosophical canon. Just as she begins to re-enter the canon, she is written back out of it and worse still, not solely by men but by women. 

So I argue it is a feminist task of great importance to salvage Shepherd’s works and philosophy before she is again forgotten in both History and even women's Herstory.