Born in Ventura, Calif. and grew up in San Fernando Valley. B.A. in Philosophy from UC Santa Cruz 1971, and Ph.D. in Philosophy University of Pennsylvania 1975. Asst. Prof. of Philosophy at Harvard University 1975-78; Asst. Prof. of Philosophy at MIT 1978-83; from 1983, Asst., Assoc., and full Prof. at USC. Visiting professorial appointments at UCLA, UCI, Claremont Graduate University, Harvard (2000-1), UC Berkeley (2004-5). President of Academic Senate, 2003-4; Faculty Master of North Residential College 2008-; Vice Dean for Faculty, USC College, 2007-8: USC Associates Award in Teaching, 1997. Research specialty: history of early modern philosophy (especially Locke, Kant, Descartes, Hume, Leibniz, Newton, Boyle,and Galileo; also interested in the later philosophy of Wittgenstein and in contemporary philosophy of mind. Teaching: a wide variety of courses in philosophy, as well as in Thematic Option (where I have taught CORE 101, CORE 102, CORE 103, and CORE 104 at various times.)