David Hugh Mellor

David Hugh Mellor (/ˈmɛlər/; born 10 July 1938), also known as Hugh Mellor and usually cited as D. H. Mellor, is a British philosopher. He is a former Professor of Philosophy and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, now Professor Emeritus, of Cambridge University.

Biography

Mellor was born in London, and educated at Manchester Grammar School. After studying chemical engineering at Pembroke College, Cambridge (BA 1960) and the University of Minnesota (MSc 1962), he took up philosophy.

His primary work is metaphysics, although his philosophical interests include philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, probability, time 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. As a professor he was the subject of extensive media coverage as the main opponent of the conferment of an honorary degree in philosophy to the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.

He 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 now holds the title of Emeritus Professor.^[1][2]

Mellor is also an amateur theatre actor.

Publications

• The Matter of Chance (1971). Cambridge University Press.
• Real Time (1981). Cambridge University Press.^[3]
• Real Time II (1998). Routledge.^[4]
• Matters of Metaphysics (1991). Cambridge University Press.
• The Facts of Causation (1995). Routledge.
• Probability: A Philosophical Introduction (2005). Routledge.
• Mind, Meaning, and Reality (2012). Oxford University Press.

References

Further reading

• Real Metaphysics: Essays in Honour of D. H. Mellor (2003). Hallvard Lillehammer and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra ed.