ABSTRACT
I'm not going to attempt anything along the lines of a summing up of what Hilary has meant, and what he continues to mean, to my own particular corner of philosophy here. But it needs at least to be mentioned – on an occasion like this – that Hilary has thought about the foundations of physics harder, and longer, and more deeply, and with more openness, and with more wonder, and with more determination, and with more courage, than anyone now living. Sidney Morgenbesser used to say that Hilary was the most quantum-mechanical philosopher in the world, because he and his philosophical position could not simultaneously be identified. And that (as with all of Sidney's jokes) is exactly right. Nobody, to this day, is as young, and as curious, and as willing to be surprised, and as ready to turn his back on everything he has ever believed, and as full of the exuberant expectation of the impossible, as Hilary. And this is how to learn about the world.
