I was born in Amarillo, Texas and raised mostly in Dallas. For many years I taught at the University of London, first at King's College and then at Birkbeck. Then I moved to the University of Oxford, where for several years I was Professor of Philosophy (and Tutorial Fellow at Wadham College). Now I am Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham.
I have also been Visiting Associate Professor at Harvard, Weingberg Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, and Inaugural Distinguished Visiting Professor at Brown, where I delivered the Blackwell-Brown Lectures.