Hugh Mellor

British philosopher (1938–2020)

Hugh Mellor

Born|

David Hugh Mellor

(1938-07-10)10 July 1938

London, England

Died| 21 June 2020(2020-06-21) (aged 81)
Education
Alma mater| Pembroke College, Cambridge
Doctoral advisor| Mary Hesse
Other advisors| Herbert Feigl
Philosophical work
Era| Contemporary philosophy
Region| Western philosophy
School| Analytic philosophy
Institutions| Darwin College, Cambridge
Doctoral students| Kwame Anthony Appiah, Jeremy Butterfield, Tim Crane, Huw Price, Rebecca Roache
Main interests| Metaphysics
Philosophy of science
Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of time
Notable ideas| Mellor's account of chance[1]
Website| www.phil.cam.ac.uk/people/teaching-research-pages/mellor/dhm11

David Hugh Mellor FBA FAHA (/ˈmɛlər/; 10 July 1938 – 21 June 2020) was a British philosopher. He was a Professor of Philosophy and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, later Professor Emeritus, of Cambridge University.

## Biography

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Mellor was born in London on 10 July 1938,[2] and educated at Manchester Grammar School.[3] He studied chemical engineering at Pembroke College, Cambridge (BA 1960).[3] His first formal study of philosophy was at the University of Minnesota where he took a minor in Philosophy of Science under Herbert Feigl.[2] From Minnesota he obtained an MSc in 1962.[2] He obtained his PhD in philosophy, with a thesis written under the supervision of Mary Hesse, at Pembroke in 1968.[2][3] He was awarded a Sc.D. from Cambridge in 1990.[3]

His primary work was in metaphysics, although his philosophical interests included philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, philosophy of time, probability and causation, laws of nature and properties, and decision theory. Mellor was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Darwin College from 1971 to 2005.

Mellor was in the news in 1992, when he argued against Cambridge awarding an honorary degree to Jacques Derrida, a French philosopher known for his theory of "deconstruction". A formal ballot decided to award the degree, but Mellor said it was undeserved, explaining: "He is a mediocre, unoriginal philosopher — he is not even interestingly bad."[4] He also commented that it had been "a bad year for bullshit in Cambridge."[5]

Mellor was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1992 to 1993, a member of the Humanist Philosophers' Group of the British Humanist Association and Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He was a Fellow of the British Academy between 1983 and 2008. In retirement Mellor held the title of emeritus professor.[3][6]

A festschrift, Real Metaphysics: Essays in Honour of D. H. Mellor, was published in 2003.[7]

Mellor was also an amateur theatre actor.[4][5]

He died on 21 June 2020.[8]

## Publications

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Authored

* The Matter of Chance (1971). Cambridge University Press.[9]
* Real Time (1981). Cambridge University Press.[10][11]
* Matters of Metaphysics (1991). Cambridge University Press.[12]
* The Facts of Causation (1995). Routledge.[13]
* Real Time II (1998). Routledge.[14]
* Probability: A Philosophical Introduction (2005). Routledge.
* Mind, Meaning, and Reality (2012). Oxford University Press

Edited

* Prospects for Pragmatism: Essays in Memory of F P Ramsey (1980)
* Science, Belief and Behaviour Essays in Honour of R B Braithwaite.(1980)[15]
* F. P. Ramsey: Philosophical Papers. Cambridge University Press. (1990)
* (with Hallvard Lillehammer) Ramsey's Legacy (2005)[16]

*For more complete publication details see the tribute page by Tim Crane.[17]

## References

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1. ^ Hallvard Lillehammer, Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (eds.), Real Metaphysics, Routledge, 2003, p. 182.
2. ^ a b c d Lillehammer, Hallvard; Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gonzalo (2003). "Introduction". Real Metaphysics. Routledge. ISBN 9781134533442.
3. ^ a b c d e "Hugh Mellor — Faculty of Philosophy". www.phil.cam.ac.uk. 18 February 2014. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
4. ^ a b Anon. (29 June 2020). "Professor Hugh Mellor obituary". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Archived from the original on 25 May 2021. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
5. ^ a b Anon. (1 March 1993). "An Interview with Professor Hugh Mellor". Cogito. 7 (1): 3–10\. doi:10.5840/cogito19937142. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019.
6. ^ "index — Faculty of Philosophy". www.phil.cam.ac.uk. 19 September 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
7. ^ Divers, John (13 November 2003). "Real Metaphysics: Essays in Honour of D. H. Mellor, Routledge". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
8. ^ "Hugh Mellor (died 21 June 2020)". University of Cambridge. Faculty of Philosophy. 18 February 2014.
9. ^ *An Open Access repository version of this collection of papers is available for PDF download here
10. ^ Kilmister, C. W. (1983). "Review of Real Time". The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. 34 (2): 197–200\. doi:10.1093/bjps/34.2.197. ISSN 0007-0882. JSTOR 687456.
11. ^ Macbeath, Murray (1983). "Review of Real Time". The Philosophical Quarterly. 33 (130): 92–95\. doi:10.2307/2219210. ISSN 0031-8094. JSTOR 2219210.
12. ^ Lowe, E. J. (April 1992). "Matters of Metaphysics By D. H. Mellor Cambridge University Press, 1991, xx + 295 pp". Philosophy. 67 (260): 268–270\. doi:10.1017/S0031819100039711. ISSN 0031-8191.
13. ^ Dowe, Phil (1998). "Review of The Facts of Causation". Philosophy of Science. 65 (1): 162–170\. doi:10.1086/392632. ISSN 0031-8248. JSTOR 188181.
14. ^ Crane, Tim; Warburton, Nigel. "The best books on Metaphysics recommended by Tim Crane". Five Books. Retrieved 28 April 2024. "Real Time 2 is the second version of the book ... It's a treatise on the nature of time ... It presents a vision of the world in metaphysical categories. It tells you about the nature of time, the nature of space, things, objects, events, in a way that is connected, but not the same as the physics of time and space. The relationship between the philosophy of time and the physics of time is much closer than ... the relationship between the question of change and the question of chemical change, because there's nothing in science that really tells you about what change is as such. But there are physicists who talk about the nature of time and space. Hugh Mellor is ... is very informed by those views, and knows the physics of space and time very well. He uses his knowledge of those, and his philosophical arguments, to defend a view of time, where time is rather like space. I think the simplest way to put it is to say that there's no such thing in reality as now, there's nothing that marks out in fundamental reality, which time is now, anymore than there's something that marks out in the fundamental reality of space which place is here. Here is just where I am, and now is just the point in time which we're thinking or uttering those words ..."
15. ^ Swinburne, R. G. (1981). "Review of Science, Belief and Behaviour. Essays in Honour of R. B. Braithwaite". Mind. 90 (359): 468–470\. doi:10.1093/mind/XC.359.468. ISSN 0026-4423. JSTOR 2253109.
16. ^ Demopoulos, William (3 May 2006). "Review of Ramsey's Legacy". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. ISSN 1538-1617.
17. ^ "Hugh Mellor – (1938–2020)". Retrieved 29 January 2024.

## Further reading

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* Stewart Candlish "David Hugh Mellor FAHA 1938 - 2020" Australian Academy of the Humanities Annual Report 2019–20 (2020)
* Real Metaphysics: Essays in Honour of D. H. Mellor (2003). Hallvard Lillehammer and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra ed. (including Mellor's Replies).

## External links

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* Tribute page by Tim Crane, collecting philosophical work, downloadable papers, memoirs and obituaries, and photos.
* Interviews with Philosophy Bites:
* Hugh Mellor on Time (2008)
* Hugh Mellor on Frank Ramsey on Truth (2011)
* Hugh Mellor on Probability (2014)
* Better Than The Stars 1978 BBC Radio programme made by Mellor about Frank Ramsey (featuring interviews with A. J. Ayer and Richard Braithwaite).
* and "Cambridge Philosophers I: F. P. Ramsey" text of an article derived from the 1978 radio programme [previously published in Philosophy 70, 243-62 (1995)]
* Archived versions of Mellor's homepage and Faculty page

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