NDPR Don Garrett (ed.) Mary Shepherd’s An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect

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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

2026.02.2 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews

Don Garrett (ed.), Mary Shepherd’s An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect, Oxford University Press, 2024, 176pp., $29.95 (pbk) ISBN 9780197649633.

Reviewed by Samuel C. Rickless, University of California San Diego

In his Memoirs of 1879, the well-read philosopher and radical Robert Blakey, who had published a four-volume History of the Philosophy of Mind in 1848, described Mary Shepherd (1777-1847) thus: “She was, without exception, the most eloquent female talker I ever met with. Her lengthened sentences, uttered with great distinction, were quite stunning, and filled one with amazement at the subtility of her mind” (Blakey 1879, 159). Shepherd was not only a stunningly eloquent talker but also an author of stunning philosophical acumen and ambition. Don Garrett’s book is a modern edition of Mary Shepherd’s “An Essay upon the Relation of...