David Hugh Mellor (; 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
Mellor was born in
London on 10 July 1938,
and educated at Manchester Grammar School.
He studied chemical engineering at Pembroke College, Cambridge (BA 1960).
His first formal study of philosophy was at the University of Minnesota where he took a minor in Philosophy of Science under
Herbert Feigl.
From Minnesota he obtained an MSc in 1962.
He obtained his PhD in philosophy, with a thesis written under the supervision of
Mary Hesse, at Pembroke in 1968.
He was awarded a Sc.D. from Cambridge in 1990.
His primary work was in metaphysics, although his philosophical interests included philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, philosophy of time, probability and Causality, Scientific law 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."
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.
A festschrift, Real Metaphysics: Essays in Honour of D. H. Mellor, was published in 2003.
Mellor was also an amateur theatre actor.
He died on 21 June 2020.
Publications
Authored
-
(1971). Cambridge University Press.
[*An Open Access repository version of this collection of papers is available for PDF download here
]
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(1981). Cambridge University Press.
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Matters of Metaphysics (1991). Cambridge University Press.
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The Facts of Causation (1995). Routledge.
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Real Time II (1998). Routledge.
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Probability: A Philosophical Introduction (2005). Routledge.
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Mind, Meaning, and Reality (2012). Oxford University Press
Edited
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(1980)
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Science, Belief and Behaviour Essays in Honour of R B Braithwaite.(1980)
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F. P. Ramsey: Philosophical Papers. Cambridge University Press. (1990)
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(with Hallvard Lillehammer) Ramsey's Legacy (2005)
*For more complete publication details see the tribute page by Tim Crane.
Further reading
-
Crane, Tim "Hugh Mellor" Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy, 22, 519–531 (2025)
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Stewart Candlish "David Hugh Mellor FAHA 1938 - 2020" Australian Academy of the Humanities Annual Report 2019–20 (2020)
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Real Metaphysics: Essays in Honour of D. H. Mellor (2003). Hallvard Lillehammer and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra ed. (including Mellor's Replies).
External links
