1972, graduate, Barnard College, Columbia University; 1976, PhD in Philosophy of Science, Princeton University. Visiting Professor of Philosophy, New College of the Humanities, London, UK. 2005, elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Novelist as well as a philosopher, having published five novels and one book of short stories. Author of ten books, most recently of Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away. Recipient, honours and awards, including: MacArthur award (1996); named Humanist of the Year (2011). Interests: dialogue between the exact sciences (physics and mathematics) and the arts, broadening from philosophy of science to moral and political philosophy.