Shepherd's Foundational Principles: Controverting the Doctrine of Mr. Hume?

Mary Shepherd concludes An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect – described in its subtitle as ‘Controverting the Doctrine of Mr. Hume’ – by listing several principles about causation as ‘the only true foundation of scientific research, of practical knowledge, and of belief in a creating and presiding Deity’. As it happens, Hume accepts each of these principles, at least as formulated. He also agrees that they are foundational – at least for scientific research and practical knowledge – and he allows that they can be supported by reasoning. Shepherd and Hume disagree, however, about the particular reasoning by which they can be supported; the order in which they can be supported; the role played by custom or habit in that support; and the kind of necessity they express. The four parts of the present essay (1) outline and examine Shepherd's arguments for each of the three distinct foundational principles; (2) outline and examine Hume's contrasting arguments for those principles; (3) compare their differing approaches to providing epistemological foundations by means of these principles while highlighting some of the objections that might be made to each approach; and (4) offer brief concluding remarks about adjudicating the relative merits of the two approaches.