Epistemic Humility and Science in Lady Mary Shepherd

This discussion analyzes Lady Mary Shepherd’s response to the skeptical question raised by Hume about necessary causation: how can we know that like causes will necessarily give rise to like effects? Regardless of whether her account is metaphysically tenable in principle, this discussion seeks to assess if it is feasible in practice. Specifically, Shepherd’s response is considered in the context of scientific inquiry. If the inductive claims germane to scientific inquiry can be grounded in reason, as Shepherd believes, then her anti-skeptical account prevails. However, a treatment of Shepherd’s oft-neglected epistemology reveals that she has not entirely silenced the Humeans here. Shepherd’s epistemic humility about external objects, when considered alongside her strict conception of natural kinds, forces us to employ an extra-rational inference when positing scientific claims. We must make an assumption about nature’s regularity which, crucially, is not guaranteed by reason. Shepherd’s response to Hume’s challenge cannot thus be considered an unmitigated success, at least by her own lights. To get induction off the ground, she has to make a concession to Hume about reason’s limits, albeit a subtle one.