 Shepherd’s doctrines regarding causality are advertised as contrary to those of David Hume. They are often presented in connection with a theory of knowledge opposed to the radical empiricism and nominalism of her primary foil.[1] Where Hume holds that common causal beliefs are due to acquired habits of imagination rather than operations of reason, she urges they are caused by reason. Where Hume holds that abstract ideas are impossible, Shepherd insists that science and philosophical analysis are impossible without them. Like Hume, she often uses “reason” to refer to a cognitive faculty rather than a sort of justification of belief (Garrett 1997; Owen 1999). But for her, the faculty is the source of abstract ideas of cause, effect, and continued existence, among others. Human reason is naturally disposed to deploy these ideas when the youngest of children first begin to perceive by sense (EPEU: 314). Some readers extract the metaphysics from the attendant nativist theory of knowledge. But the texts offer no non-question begging argument for her central metaphysical doctrine. They assume the theory of causality they purport to prove. This appears to be damaging unless her epistemology is taken into account. As she sees it, the common convictions regarding cause and effect are products of a natural predisposition of human reason; this explains why we believe them.  Their origin does not justify assent to them, but Shepherd undertakes to show that there is justification for it. 