Shepherd vol 2 ebook: Concluding Remark

Concluding Remark

In this volume, In Part 1, I began by asking and answering the burning question in academia and the philosophy world: 

Is Shepherd the author of the anonymously published 1819 treatise?

I structured my objection to discounting Shepherd as the true author by providing my counterargument to Boyle's paper in which she presented her claims that have subsequently led to a shift in perception in academia, publishing and library cataloguing away from Shepherd being the most likely author. I find this sudden eradication of a possible bulk of Shepherd's philosophy and writings unacceptable and unfeminist, especially since Boyle's argument against Shepherd's authorship is not solid enough to warrant such drastic action. There is no need to prevent Shepherd's authorship as, at least, an open question and continue to hear out various scholarly views on the matter. 

Through my analysis of Shepherd's authorship, I developed my overarching argument in this volume towards my second research question, which I take up in Part 2: 

Was Shepherd a Materialist in any sense and if so, how? Are there other theist, or quietly agnostic, materialists in the Early Modern period who provide a good comparison with Shepherd? Answering these questions served three main purposes in this volume: 

One, it continues the thread of my argument in Part 1 by addressing the claim that Shepherd cannot be the author of the 1819 Treatise because it expresses Materialist views that she does not possess in her other two treatises. 

Two, I argue that it furthers my interpretation of Shepherd's philosophy and scholarship on her by deepening our knowledge of her scientific and philosophical stance. 

Three, through my discussion of the many other theist materialists in the Early Modern period, I put forward my accompanying, more general argument, that contemporary philosophers and readers of Shepherd's works, as well as other books by philosophers in the history of philosophy, must not superimpose their modern-day ideology and tendency to see everything in a binary, black and white way. In this case, an unhelpful assumption, and barrier to understanding Shepherd's philosophy would be that all thinkers fit only one of two boxes: Either they are Hard Materialists who therefore are automatically atheist since they believe everything is reducible to material substance, or they are anti-Materialists, possibly Idealists, who embrace the immaterial and so are free to believe in God, Jesus and the immortality of the soul. 

Hence, later in this volume, I show the spectrum of Materialistic approaches available to Early Modern thinkers, including various Materialistic stances adopted by Theists, and more commonly, dissident theists. In this way, I have argued for the plausibility of Shepherd being a dissident, mild theist or quietly agnostic, who has strands of materialism running through her philosophical and scientific arguments and body of work. 

I have additionally demonstrated the value of contextualising Shepherd and her philosophical arguments within the lesser discussed debates surrounding her. In particular, I argue that the contemporary reader needs to learn more about and appreciate the now less famous thinkers that Shepherd engages with and refers to in her Treatises, such as Lawrence, Brown, Hartley and even slightly better known ones such as Bacon. Overall, I think this is of greater interpretative use, and better assists us to grasp her overall approach, than over-focusing our scholarship and secondary literature on the relevance of the canonical philosophers Shepherd analyses, such as Hume and Berkeley.