Shows
Robinson's Podcast258 - Richard Wolff: Donald Trump’s Tariff War DissectedSupport our sponsor, FarmKind, to fix factory farming: https://www.farmkind.givingThe code “ROBINSON” will increase your donation by 50% with a bump from large donors.Richard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition. This is Richard’s ninth appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. In this episode, Richard and Robinson discuss the tariffs that President Donald Trump would like to place on goods imported from around the world. Mo...
2025-08-312h 07Robinson's Podcast255 - Michael Hudson: Trump, China, AI, and the Untold History of EconomicsMichael Hudson is Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends. He researches domestic and international finance, the history of economics, and the role of debt in shaping class stratification, among many other topics. This is Michael’s fifth appearance on the show. He was also a guest on episode 180, where he and Robinson discussed neoliberalism, industrial capitalism, and the rentier economy, and on episode 198, where they discussed Marxism, economic parasites, and contemporary debt cancellation. He has also joined with Richard Wolff. In th...
2025-07-202h 37Robinson's Podcast248 - Richard Wolff: Trump, Hitler, and the End of the American EmpireRichard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition. This is Richard’s eighth appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. In his last appearance, episode #243, he and Robinson discussed 2025 and the first weeks of Trump’s presidency, as well as what’s to come. More particularly, they discuss the irrelevance of Donald Trump, his domestic and global policies, China, narratives on the right and left, and the future of the United States. In this episode, they continue the discussion by divin...
2025-04-133h 11Robinson's Podcast245 - Leonard Susskind: String Theory and the Black Hole WarLeonard Susskind is Felix Block Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Along with other accomplishments, he is among the fathers of such revolutionary concepts in physics as string theory, black hole complementarity, the holographic principle, and the string-theoretic landscape. He was also the guest on episode #217, where he and Robinson discussed the fine-tuning problem and the physics of the multiverse. In this episode, Leonard and Robinson get into another topic—black holes and the information paradox. More particularly, they talk about important figures like Stephen Hawking and Gerard ’t Hooft, singularities, chaos, whether the cosmos is a hologram, the end...
2025-03-092h 00Robinson's Podcast244 - Norman Finkelstein: Donald J. Trump, Mossad Conspiracies in Israel, and the Dying LeftNorman Finkelstein received his PhD from the Princeton University Politics Department, and is best known for his research on Israel and Palestine. In this episode, Norman and Robinson sit down for a discussion about Donald Trump, the latest from Israel, Palestine, and Gaza, and the dying Left. Norman also appeared on episode 192, where he and Robinson discussed allegations of genocide and apartheid, Hamas and Hezbollah, and connections between the war and the Holocaust. Norman was also featured on episode 218, where he addressed the facts and fictions generated by the Israel-Hamas War, and episode 228, which was all about October 6th...
2025-02-233h 42Robinson's Podcast238 - Barry Loewer: What Is The Philosophy of Science?Barry Loewer is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers. Before that he did his PhD in philosophy at Stanford. Barry works largely in the philosophy of physics, the philosophy of science, and metaphysics. This is Barry’s third appearance on the show. He was last on episode 189 with David Albert, in which Robinson, David, and Barry discussed David and Barry’s joint program known as “The Mentaculus”, which they use to solve many problems in the foundations of physics, from probability to the direction of time. In this episode, Barry and Robinson discuss the philosophical foundations of science, touching on the r...
2024-12-152h 01
Robinson's Podcast231 - Victor Davis Hanson: The Final Case for Donald J. TrumpVictor Davis Hanson is a renowned classicist, military historian, and political commentator. He is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Among numerous other awards, Victor was presented the National Humanities Medal in 2007. In this episode, Robinson and Victor discuss the 2024 presidential election. More particularly, they review some of the main arguments for and against electing Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. This includes their records, domestic and foreign policies, recent assassination attempts, and more. Victor also appeared as a guest on episode #112, in which he and...
2024-10-271h 14
Robinson's Podcast230 - Richard Wolff: The Final Case Against Donald J. TrumpPatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Robinson’s Fashion Empire: http://bit.ly/3XBKqO2
Richard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition. This is Richard’s fifth appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. In episode #127, he and Robinson discussed some of the most profound criticisms of capitalism; in #154, they focused on the myths surrounding Marxism and Marx himself; in #190 they covered the Israel-Palestine conflict from a Marxist perspective; and in...
2024-10-202h 00
Robinson's Podcast227 - David Eagleman: Synesthesia, Brain Plasticity, AI, and Conspiracy TheoriesPatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Robinson’s Fashion Empire: http://bit.ly/3XBKqO2
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University who works on synesthesia, brain plasticity, and sensory substitution, among other topics. He is also a bestselling author, the host of the Inner Cosmos podcast, and writer and presenter of the international PBS series The Brain with David Eagleman. In this episode, Robinson and David discuss brain plasticity and its optimization, the neuroscience of language-learning, consciousness and animal minds, synesthesia, sensory substitution, artificial intelligence, conspiracy theories, and mo...
2024-09-291h 14
Robinson's Podcast223 - Michael Graziano: Consciousness, Animal Minds, and the Neuroscience of SufferingPatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Michael Graziano is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University, where he and his lab research the brain basis of consciousness. This is Michael’s second appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. In episode #169, they discussed Michael’s Attention Schema Theory of consciousness, in which consciousness is a way in which the brain models attention to better organize and monitor itself. In this conversation, Robinson and Michael reexamine the Attention Schema Theory with an eye toward the problem of studying the consciousness not only of humans, but of other...
2024-09-012h 31
Robinson's Podcast222 - Richard Wolff: Israel, Ukraine, China, and the End of the American EmpirePatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Richard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition. This is Richard’s fourth appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. In episode #127, he and Robinson discussed some of the most profound criticisms of capitalism; in #154, they focused on the myths surrounding Marxism and Marx himself; and in #190 they covered the Israel-Palestine conflict from a Marxist perspective. In this wide-ranging episode, Richard and Robinson talk about the end of the...
2024-08-253h 03
Robinson's Podcast220 - Michael Hudson: Debt, Economic Collapse, and the End of CivilizationPatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Michael Hudson is Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends. He researches domestic and international finance, the history of economics, and the role of debt in shaping class stratification, among many other topics. This is Michael’s third appearance on the show. He was also a guest on episode 180, where he and Robinson discussed neoliberalism, industrial capitalism, and the rentier economy, and on episode 198, where they discussed Marxism, economic parasites, and co...
2024-08-111h 34
Robinson's PodcastAsk Me Anything | August 2024Patreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
This is the August 2024 AMA for Robinson’s Podcast. It is supported by the members of the Patreon. In this installment, Robinson answers questions about metaethics, art history, discipline, fashion, fitness, fantasy world-building, consciousness, fine-tuning, quantum mechanics, and more.
OUTLINE
00:00 Introduction
01:01 What to Do
07:43 Thoughts on Discipline
17:29 Art History
20:43 Philosophy for Daily Life
23:30 Planners and Pantsers
27:53 Favorite Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics?
33:06 Favorite Color?
35:57 On Magic an...
2024-08-081h 30
Robinson's Podcast218 - Norman Finkelstein: Genocide in Israel and PalestinePatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Norman Finkelstein received his PhD from the Princeton University Politics Department, and is best known for his research on Israel and Palestine. In this episode of Robinson’s Podcast, Norman addresses some of the most common arguments made in defense of Israel, such as those purporting to show Israel is not committing genocide, that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, that Israel is fighting in self-defense, that Egypt is responsible for the crisis, and more. Norman also appeared on episode 192, where he and Robinson discussed October 7th, allegations of genocide and ap...
2024-07-312h 08
Robinson's Podcast215 - Anna Lembke: On Philosophy and PsychiatryPatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Dr. Anna Lembke received her undergraduate degree in Humanities from Yale University and her medical degree from Stanford University. She is currently Professor and Medical Director of Addiction Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also Program Director of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. This is Anna’s second time on the show. On episode 117, she and Robinson discussed her latest, New York Times bestselling book, Dopamine Nation (Dutton/Penguin Random House, August 2021). In this ep...
2024-07-071h 37
Robinson's PodcastAsk Me Anything | July 2024Patreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
This is the inaugural AMA for Robinson’s Podcast. It is supported by the members of the podcast’s Patreon. In this installment, Robinson answers questions about the reality of mathematics, podcasting, moral facts, ice cream, the nature of time, literary books for neophytes, and more.
Denying Infinity: https://doi.org/10.1080/01445340.2024.2344346
Abstract: Abraham Robinson is well-known as the inventor of nonstandard analysis, which uses nonstandard models to give the notions of infinitesimal and infinitely large magnitudes a precise inte...
2024-07-031h 29
Robinson's Podcast214 - Joyce Carol Oates: On Philosophy and LiteraturePatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Joyce Carol Oates is the Rogers S. Berlind ’52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities at Princeton University with the Program in Creative Writing. She is among the most widely-recognized and respected writers of our time, and has written in a wide variety of media and genres, from poetry and fiction in the former category to horror and Gothic in the latter. Her work has also been adapted into various other media, from plays to film. Joyce is the recipient of two O. Henry Awards and the National Book Award, am...
2024-06-301h 00
Robinson's Podcast213 - Slavoj Žižek: God, Marxism, Philosophy, and Quantum MechanicsPatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Slavoj Žižek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University, and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Department of Philosophy. This is Slavoj’s fourth appearance on the show. On episode 109, he and Robinson discussed wokeness and psychoanalysis. On episode 118, he, Sean Carroll, and Robinson discussed quantum physics, the multiverse, and time travel. And on episode 206 he, Lee Smolin, and Robinson discussed quantum physics. In this episode, Robinson and Slavoj talk about...
2024-06-231h 16
Robinson's Podcast210 - David Albert & Tim Maudlin: A Discussion of Niels Bohr, Measurement, & Quantum MechanicsPatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
David Albert is the Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, director of the Philosophical Foundations of Physics program at Columbia, and a faculty member of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics. Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at NYU and Founder and Director of the JBI. This is David’s seventh appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. He last appeared on episode 189 with Barry Loewer to talk about the Mentaculus, their joint project on the foundations of statistical mechanics. This is Tim’s sixth...
2024-06-022h 03
Robinson's Podcast206 - Slavoj Žižek & Lee Smolin: Marxism Meets Quantum PhysicsPatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Slavoj Žižek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Department of Philosophy. He was also the guest for episodes 109—on psychoanalysis, wokeness, racism, and a hundred other topics—and 118, where he appeared with Sean Carroll to discuss quantum physics, the multiverse, and time travel. Lee Smolin is a founding and senior faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and the author of a number of bestselling books, including The Trouble with Physics (Mariner...
2024-05-0559 min
Robinson's Podcast191 - Victor Davis Hanson: An American’s Case For IsraelPatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Victor Davis Hanson is a renowned classicist, military historian, and political commentator. He is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Among numerous other awards, Victor was presented the National Humanities Medal in 2007. In this episode, which is the second in an installment of three considering different perspectives on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Robinson and Victor discuss his appraisal of the situation as a military historian, some of the contentious claims on both sides that are...
2024-01-211h 02
Robinson's Podcast190 - Richard Wolff: A Marxist’s Case For PalestinePatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Richard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition. This is Richard’s third appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. In episode #127, he and Robinson discussed some of the most profound criticisms of capitalism, and in #154 installment, they focused on the myths surrounding Marxism and Marx himself. In this episode, Richard and Robinson talk about the current—and enduring—Israel-Palestine conflict, with particular emphasis on how, with his Marxist...
2024-01-171h 38
Robinson's Podcast189 - David Albert & Barry Loewer: The Mentaculus (Or, a Probability Map of the Universe)Patreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
David Albert is the Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, director of the Philosophical Foundations of Physics program at Columbia, and a faculty member of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics, as is the second guest. Barry Loewer is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers. Before that he did his PhD in philosophy at Stanford (!). Barry works largely in the philosophy of physics, the philosophy of science, and metaphysics. This is Barry’s second time on the show—in episode 83 he and Robi...
2024-01-121h 54
Robinson's Podcast188 - Tim Maudlin & Sheldon Goldstein: The Copenhagen Interpretation and Bohmian MechanicsPatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at NYU and Founder and Director of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics. Sheldon Goldstein is Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers University, where he researches mathematical physics, the foundations of quantum mechanics, and Bohmian Mechanics. He is also Board Member of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics, and this is his second appearance on the show. In episode 170, he and Robinson discussed Bohmian Mechanics. On the other hand, this is Tim’s fifth appearance on th...
2024-01-101h 46
Robinson's Podcast185 - Jim Al-Khalili: The Fundamentals of Quantum BiologyPatreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7
Jim Al-Khalili holds a University of Surrey Distinguished Chair in physics and a university chair in the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey, where he is a theoretical physicist, author, and broadcaster. In this episode, Robinson and Jim talk about the fundamentals of quantum biology, including what it is, how some animals—like Robinson’s namesake, the Robin—take advantage of quantum mechanics, how exotic phenomena like quantum tunneling fit into the biological world, and how quantum mechanics relates to the arrow of time. Jim’s latest...
2024-01-0458 min
Robinson's Podcast170 - Sheldon Goldstein: Pilot Wave Theory and Bohmian Mechanics
Sheldon Goldstein is Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers University, where he researches mathematical physics, the foundations of quantum mechanics, and Bohmian Mechanics. He is also Board Member of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics, founded by fellow Robinson’s Podcast multiverse denizen, Tim Maudlin. In this episode, Robinson and Shelly discuss all things Bohmian mechanics, from the origins of pilot wave theory with de Broglie to its chief theoretical innovations and its relationship to philosophy, including some of the main objections to—and strengths of—the theory. Check out Shelly’s book on the s...
2023-11-241h 31
Robinson's Podcast157 - David Albert: The Metaphysics of Quantum MechanicsDavid Albert is the Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and one of the world’s most respected philosophers of physics. He is also the director of the Philosophical Foundations of Physics program at Columbia and a faculty member of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics. This is David’s fifth (!) appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. He appeared on episode #23 with Justin Clarke-Doane on metaethics and absolute space, episode #30 on the philosophy of time, episode #67 with Tim Maudlin on the foundations of quantum theory, and episode #106 with Sean Carroll on Many-Worlds and fine-tuning. In thi...
2023-10-221h 54
Robinson's Podcast154 - Richard Wolff: Karl Marx and the Myths of MarxismRichard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition. This is Richard’s second appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. In episode #127, he and Robinson discussed some of the most profound criticisms of capitalism. In this installment, they focus on Marx himself, including Karl Marx’s background, his most important views, what he wrote and didn’t write, and some of the common—and potentially devastating—criticisms of Marxism.
Richard’s Website: https://www.rdwolff.com
2023-10-151h 41
Robinson's Podcast146 - Christopher E. Mason & Igor Tulchinsky: Smart Weapons, Genetics, and Predictive AlgorithmsChristopher E. Mason is Professor of Computational Genomics in Computational Biomedicine in the Institute for Computational Biomedicine and Professor of Neuroscience in the Brain and Mind Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine. Igor Tulchinsky is the founder, chairman, and CEO of WorldQuant, a global quantitative asset management firm. Together, they lead a joint project between Cornell Medicine and WorldQuant, the WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction, which seeks to marry the expertise of financial prediction and analysis with genetic and medical research to improve and deploy new methods of preventive medicine. In this episode, Robinson, Chris, and Igor discuss their recent...
2023-09-2756 min
Robinson's Podcast140 - John Burgess: Realism in the Philosophy of MathematicsJohn Burgess is John N. Woodhull Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, where he works in mathematical and philosophical logic and the philosophy of mathematics. In this episode, Robinson and John discuss realism in the philosophy of mathematics, and while the nature of this question is itself disputed, it can be roughly described as concerning the extent to which we should be committed to the mind-independent truth of mathematical theorems, or to the existence of the objects they apparently describe. Robinson and John begin by addressing the nuances of this question, and they then turn to various developments in...
2023-09-131h 34
Robinson's Podcast126 - Michael Strevens: Scientific Explanation & Methodology and The Knowledge MachineMichael Strevens is Professor of Philosophy at New York University, where he works across the philosophy of science and the philosophical applications of cognitive science. In this episode, Robinson and Michael talk about his recent book, The Knowledge Machine, which explores how irrationality shaped the Scientific Revolution. Along the way, they discuss the great debate over the nature of the scientific method—including appearances from Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn—how explanations function in science, and what roles religion, aesthetics, and other factors distinct from concrete evidence should play in scientific thought.
Michael’s Websit...
2023-08-111h 21
Robinson's Podcast125 - Bas van Fraassen: Realism, Thomas Kuhn, and the Semantic Approach in Philosophy of ScienceBas van Fraassen is the McCosh Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University and a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University. In addition to being one of the most recognized philosophers of science working today—he received the Philosophy of Science Association’s inaugural Hempel Award—he has also worked in epistemology and logic. In this episode, Bas and Robinson discuss a major shift in the philosophy of science in the second half of the twentieth century from the view of the logical positivists, who had a formal, mathematical approach, to philosophers who adopted the semantic approa...
2023-08-091h 26
Robinson's Podcast124 - Jay McClelland: Deep Learning, Neural Networks, and Artificial IntelligenceJay McClelland is Lucie Stern Professor in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, where he is also Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, Computation and Technology. Along with other towering figures like Geoffrey Hinton, Jay is considered one of the fathers of artificial intelligence. In this episode, Robinson and Jay discuss some of his main interests in and contributions to the field, including his work on parallel distributed processing with David Rumelhart, the relationship between neural networks and the brain, and just what developments are necessary for artificial intelligence to replicate the thinking of the greatest human...
2023-08-061h 47
Robinson's Podcast123 - Paul Boghossian: The Sokal Hoax, The A Priori, and Moral FactsPaul Boghossian is Silver Professor of Philosophy at New York University, where he is also Chair of the Philosophy Department. Paul has worked in a wide variety of areas within philosophy, including epistemology and the philosophy of language, mind, and logic respectively. Robinson and Paul discuss the sociological relationship between physics and philosophy, the Sokal Hoax, philosophy in public life, the role of the a priori and a posteriori distinction in metaphysics, logic, and epistemology, and the nature of moral facts. For more detail on the latter, check out Paul’s book with Timothy Williamson, Debating The A Priori (Ox...
2023-08-041h 19
Robinson's Podcast122 - David Pizarro: Moral Psychology, Praise & Blame, Disgust & PoliticsDavid Pizarro is Professor of Psychology at Cornell University. While he teaches and publicly discusses a wide variety of material in the discipline, his primary research interest is in moral judgment. In this episode, Robinson and David discuss some of the conceptual underpinnings of moral psychology before turning to the research on praise, blame, social cognition, and the relationship between disgust and political affiliation. David is also the co-host of two podcasts, Very Bad Wizards with Tamler Sommers and Psych with Paul Bloom.
David’s Website: http://peezer.net
Da...
2023-08-021h 49
Robinson's Podcast121 - Julian Barbour: Thermodynamics, Boltzmann Brains, and a New Theory of TimeJulian Barbour is a physicist working in the foundations of physics and quantum gravity, with a special interest in time and the history of science. In this episode, Julian and Robinson discuss thermodynamics and the arrows of time, including a new theory of time developed by Julian and his collaborators, which is laid out in his book, The Janus Point: A New Theory of Time. If you’re interested in the foundations of physics—which you absolutely should be—then please check out the John Bell Institute (Julian is an Honorary Fellow at the JBI), which is devoted to provid...
2023-07-301h 57
Robinson's Podcast120 - Simon Blackburn: Vanity, Narcissism, Lust, and PrideSimon Blackburn was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. This is Simon’s second appearance on the show. In episode 68, Simon and Robinson discussed metaethics and moral realism. In this episode, they talk about his latest books, Lust and Mirror, Mirror, with special attention to toxic vanity, the tale of Narcissus, and pride.
Lust: https://a.co/d/9dcOem9
Mirror, Mirror: https://a.co/d/9uy81GY
O...
2023-07-281h 03
Robinson's Podcast119 - Mark Solms: Neuropsychoanalysis and the Source of ConsciousnessMark Solms is professor of Neuropsychology at the Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cape Town. He is also a psychoanalyst, and while Mark’s early research focused on the brain mechanisms of sleep and dreaming, he is currently working on the neural correlates of consciousness and affect. In this episode, Robinson and Mark talk about his new book The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness. More particularly, they discuss the hard problem of consciousness and how recent advances in neuroscience have pointed toward a solution.
The Hidden Spring: https://a.co...
2023-07-261h 32
Robinson's Podcast118 - Slavoj Žižek & Sean Carroll: Quantum Physics, the Multiverse, and Time TravelSlavoj Žižek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University, and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Department of Philosophy. He was also the guest for Robinson’s Podcast #109 on psychoanalysis, wokeness, racism, and a hundred other topics. Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. He is also host of Sean Carroll’s Mindscape, a terrific show (that influenced the birth of Robinson’s Podcast) about science, society, philosophy, culture, a...
2023-07-231h 48
Robinson's Podcast117 - Anna Lembke: Dopamine, Drug Addiction, and RecoveryDr. Anna Lembke received her undergraduate degree in Humanities from Yale University and and her medical degree from Stanford University. She is currently Professor and Medical Director of Addiction Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also Program Director of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. In this episode, Robinson and Anna discuss her latest, New York Times bestselling book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (Dutton/Penguin Random House, August 2021). More particularly, they talk about just what happens in the brain when someone...
2023-07-211h 28
Robinson's Podcast116 - Massimo Pigliucci: Pseudoscience, Conspiracy Theories, and the Public IntellectualMassimo Pigliucci is K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York, where he specializes in both ancient philosophy and the philosophy of science. In addition to a doctorate in philosophy, Massimo has a PhD in evolutionary biology. In this episode, Robinson and Massimo discuss the vast landscape between science on the one hand and pseudoscience on the other, covering how they should be distinguished, examples galore, and the role of the public intellectual in science education. Check out Massimo’s excellent book, which ranges across these topics and more, Nonsense on Stilts: How to Te...
2023-07-191h 06
Robinson's Podcast115 - Craig Callender & Tim Maudlin: Time Travel, Time’s Arrow, and The Block UniverseCraig Callender is Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Institute for Practical Ethics at UC San Diego. Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at NYU and Founder and Director of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics. Craig and Tim are leading philosophers of science and physics. Craig also appeared on episode 73, in which he and Robinson discussed pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. Tim was a guest on episode 46, which covered laws of nature, space, and free will, and episode 67 with David Albert, which was all about the foundations of quantum mechanics. In this episode, Craig, Tim...
2023-07-162h 05
Robinson's Podcast114 - Eric Helms: Nutrition, Bodybuilding, & Supplementation for Strength and AestheticsEric Helms is an AUT Research Fellow at the Sports Performance Research Institute New Zealand (Auckland University of Technology) in the Strength & Conditioning and Sports Physiology and Nutrition research groups. He is also the Director and Chief Science Officer of 3DMJ, an organization devoted to strength training and education centered around the same, a competitive bodybuilder, co-host of the Iron Culture podcast—which comes highly, highly recommended by Robinson—and a founding editor and reviewer for Monthly Applications in Strength Sport. Eric is also the author of two terrific books on strength training and nutrition respectively, The Muscle and Stre...
2023-07-141h 58
Robinson's Podcast113 - David Spiegel: Hypnosis and Mental IllnessDavid Spiegel is Willson Professor of Medicine and Associate Chair of Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. He did his undergraduate work at Yale and received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. David is highly regarded as one of the most creative psychiatrists in the field, and has worked on a wide array of topics within the discipline. In this episode, Robinson and David discuss his pioneering work in hypnotherapy, as David is the world’s leading hypnotherapist and hypnotherapy researcher. More particularly, they discuss the origins of hypnotherapy, its relationship to hypnosis in popular culture, how th...
2023-07-111h 32
Robinson's Podcast112 - Victor Davis Hanson: Revisionist History and the Dying CitizenVictor Davis Hanson is a renowned classicist, military historian, and political commentator. He is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Among numerous other awards, Victor was presented the National Humanities Medal in 2007. In this episode, Robinson and Victor discuss his latest book, The Dying Citizen. More particularly, they talk about the Ancient Greek origin of a flourishing egalitarian society centered around the notion of citizenship, the way this history has been subverted and recast, the perils of judging the past through the lens of the...
2023-07-091h 01
Robinson's Podcast111 - Avi Loeb: Alien Life, Extraterrestrial Spacecraft, and OumuamuaAvi Loeb is Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science in the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University, and former chair of the department. Before joining Harvard he spent fifteen years working in theoretical astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is also the Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation, the Founding Director of the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard, and Head of the Galileo Project. In this episode, Avi and Robinson discuss his controversial and compelling research on—and theories about—Oumuamua, a comet that passed through the solar system in 2017, and which Avi...
2023-07-071h 50
Robinson's Podcast110 - Daniel Kahneman: Biases and Flaws in Human JudgmentDaniel Kahneman is Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Public Policy at Princeton University. He won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002 for joint work with Amos Tversky in which they revealed the biases and heuristics with which humans operate, thereby deviating from the rationality presumed by economic theory at the time. Among this and many other awards, Danny was also given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barrack Obama. While Danny is likely best known outside of psychology for his book Thinking Fast and Slow, he and Robinson discuss his latest a book, co-authored with Olivier Simony and...
2023-07-041h 06
Robinson's Podcast109 - Slavoj Žižek: Wokeness, Psychoanalysis, and Quantum MechanicsSlavoj Žižek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University, and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Department of Philosophy. He and Robinson discuss a great many things, including the role of psychoanalysis in the cultural criticism of wokeness, the relationship between truth, science, and philosophy, and what quantum theory might tell us about the nature of reality.
OUTLINE
00:00 In This Episode…
01:31 Introduction
04:07 Wokeness and Psychoanalysis
15:00 Free Speech and Curb Y...
2023-07-021h 36
Robinson's Podcast108 - Chiara Mingarelli: Supermassive Black Holes & the Gravitational Wave BackgroundChiara Mingarelli is a gravitational-wave astrophysicist and a professor in the Department of Physics at Yale University. She studies supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies and their mergers using data about gravitational waves that are detected by pulsar timing array experiments. In this episode, Robinson and Chiara discuss PTAs, gravitational waves, black holes, how and why they merge, and the fresh release of NANOgrav’s fifteen-year data set, which gives the first ever evidence of a gravitational wave background in the universe, an unprecedented discovery that marks the dawn of a new era of astrophysical research.
...
2023-06-291h 31
Robinson's Podcast107 - Kevin Dorst: Bayesian Reasoning, Irrationality, and Political PolarizationKevin Dorst is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. He works at the intersection between philosophy and social science, focusing on rationality. In this episode Kevin and Robinson discuss just this: They begin with classical theories of rationality and where they fall short before discussing instances where the empirical literature shows that humans do not reason rationally at all, touching on the gambler’s fallacy, sunk-cost reasoning, and the hindsight bias. They then move on to discuss the phenomenon of political polarization, which draws both on our capacity for rationality and irrationality. Make sure to...
2023-06-271h 45
Robinson's Podcast106 - David Albert & Sean Carroll: Quantum Theory, Boltzmann Brains, & The Fine-Tuned UniverseDavid Albert is the Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and Director of the Philosophical Foundations of Physics program at Columbia. David is a prior guest of the Robinson’s Podcast multiverse, having appeared on episodes #23 (with Justin Clarke-Doane), #30, and #67 (with Tim Maudlin). Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. He is also host of Sean Carroll’s Mindscape, a terrific show (that influenced the birth of Robinson’s Podcast ) about science, society, philosophy, culture, arts, and ideas. Sean also had a great conver...
2023-06-252h 10
Robinson's Podcast105 - Luciano Floridi: The Ethics of Artificial IntelligenceLuciano Floridi is the Oxford Internet Institute’s Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics of the Faculty of Philosophy, and Research Associate and Fellow in Information Policy of the Department of Computer Science. Beginning in the fall, he will be the Founding Director of the Digital Ethics Center and Professor of Cognitive Science at Yale University. For much of the past twenty-five years Luciano has been developing the philosophy of information as its own free-standing discipline within the philosophical world. In this episode he...
2023-06-231h 01
Robinson's Podcast104 - Nicholas Christakis: Evolutionary Biology & Society’s Genetic UnderpinningNicholas Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, where he is also Director of the Human Nature Lab and Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science. Nicholas is both a sociologist and a physician; after completing his undergraduate at Yale in biology, he received an M.D. and M.P.H. from Harvard and then a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. Nicholas has written numerous books, including Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live (Little, Brown Spark, 2020) and Blueprint: The Ev...
2023-06-211h 24
Robinson's Podcast103 - Brad Schoenfeld: Muscular Hypertrophy and Maximizing Muscle GrowthBrad Schoenfeld is Professor of Exercise Science in the Department of Heath Promotion and Nutrition Sciences at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York, where he serves as the graduate director the Human Performance and Fitness Program. Brad is one of the foremost—if not the foremost—authorities on human muscular development, and author of the textbook Science and Development of Muscle Hypertrophy. In this episode, Robinson and Brad talk first about the foundations of hypertrophy on a theoretical level (what makes muscles grow) before moving on to some applications of these principles in the gym.
2023-06-181h 05
Robinson's Podcast102 - Stephen Wolfram: Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, and Philosophy of MathStephen Wolfram is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, and the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, and the Wolfram Language. He received his PhD in theoretical physics from Caltech when he was twenty years old. In addition to his work at the helm of Wolfram Research, he writes and researches widely across computer science, physics, mathematics, and more. Most recently, Stephen is the author of What Is ChatGPT Doing…and Why Does It Work? (2023). Robinson and Stephen begin by discussing just this, before moving on to some more theoretical questions about intelligence in general and artificial intelligence in pa...
2023-06-161h 57
Robinson's Podcast101 - Paul Bloom: Freud, Mental Illness, Psychoanalysis, and Cognitive BiasesPaul Bloom is Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University and Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. He works quite broadly in psychology, and studies how children and adults make sense of the world, with special focus on pleasure, morality, religion, fiction, and art. Paul is the author of seven books, most recently Psych: The Story of the Human Mind, some of the topics of which constitute the subject of this episode. More particularly, Paul and Robinson discuss Freud’s legacy in contemporary psychology, mental illness, human rationality and irrationality, and the roots of...
2023-06-131h 57
Robinson's Podcast100 - Steven Pinker: Rationality, Enlightenment, and Free SpeechSteven Pinker is Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is an experimental cognitive psychologist who writes on language, mind, and human nature. In this episode—the hundredth of Robinson’s Podcast (!)—Robinson and Steve talk about his recent book Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters (Penguin, 2022), which is linked below. More particularly, they discuss rationality’s evolutionary basis, how it is subverted by conspiratorial thinking and other dimensions of the “mythology mindset”, how it relates to enlightenment and human progress, and the state of free speech at Harvard and in the academic wor...
2023-06-111h 07
Robinson's Podcast99 - Nancy Sherman: Stoicism, Military Ethics, and WarNancy Sherman is Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. Before that, she taught at Yale and did her graduate work in ancient philosophy at Harvard University. Nancy has worked broadly across value theory and ancient philosophy, writing on such varied topics as military ethics, moral psychology, the emotions, and Stoicism. The occasion for this episode is Nancy’s recent book, Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience (Oxford, 2021), which is now available in paperback, and linked below. Nancy and Robinson discuss what contemporary takes on Stoicism get wrong—they miss the emphasis on connection and comm...
2023-06-091h 12
Robinson's Podcast98 - Dani S. Bassett & Perry Zurn: Curiosity, Philosophy, and Network TheoryDani S. Bassett is the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Perry Zurn is Provost Associate Professor of Philosophy at American University. Dani and Perry both do a great deal of interdisciplinary work within their fields, but Dani is best known for her work in systems neuroscience, while Perry’s research is primarily in political philosophy. The subject of this episode, however—though systems neuroscience and political philosophy both make their appearances—is Dani and Perry’s book, Curious Minds: The Power of Connection (MIT, 2022). While it wouldn’t be immediately apparent from their different...
2023-06-071h 04
Robinson's Podcast96 - Jody Azzouni: Knowledge and SkepticismJody Azzouni is Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. While Jody is best known for his nominalist stance in the philosophy of mathematics, he is also an author of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. This is Jody’s third appearance on the show. On his first appearance, episode #45, he and Robinson spoke about the debate between nominalists and platonists in the philosophy of mathematics, Jody’s own deflationary stance, and some adjacent concerns about ontological commitment in both formal and informal languages. On his second appearance, episode #75, they spoke about logic, natural languages, and formal languages, and mathematics. And in this...
2023-05-311h 34
Robinson's Podcast95 - Achille Varzi: What Is Mereology?Achille Varzi is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and Bruno Kessler Honorary Professor at the University of Trento. He is a renowned metaphysicist and logician, and widely regarded as the world’s leading mereologist. Achille—or Varzi, as he is affectionately known around the halls of Columbia’s philosophy department—is also an immensely important philosophical figure for Robinson, and a prior denizen of this podcast multiverse (see episode 47 for Achille’s introduction to metaphysics and nominalism). In this installment, however, Robinson and Varzi delve deep into the history, logic, and metaphysics of mereology, the theory of...
2023-05-283h 45
Robinson's Podcast94 - Alva Noë: Art, Philosophy, and The EntanglementAlva Noë is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he researches the philosophy of mind—primarily focusing on perception and consciousness—and the philosophy of art. In this episode, Robinson and Alva discuss the latter, for while Alva is already the author of two books in the area—Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature (Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 2015) and Look: Dispatches from the Art World (Oxford, 2021)—June 23, 2023 will mark the release of a new work, The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are (Princeton University Press). R...
2023-05-261h 33
Robinson's Podcast93 - Havi Carel: The Phenomenology of IllnessHavi Carel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol, where she studies illness and its relationship to philosophy. Her research draws largely on phenomenology, a philosophical approach most closely associated with the Continental tradition of philosophy, and that relies heavily on perception and experience. In this episode Robinson and Havi discuss her own illness, LAM, and how it affects her own work, along with many other topics related to illness, such as Freud, mental health, and breathlessness.
OUTLINE
00:00 In This Episode…
01:24 Introduction
03:31 LAM and Illness
...
2023-05-231h 11
Robinson's Podcast92 - Joan Bagaria: What Is Set Theory?Joan Bagaria is ICREA Research Professor in the Department of Experimental Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Barcelona. He is a mathematical logician who works in set theory, which is the branch of mathematics that not only specializes in the investigation of infinity but serves as the foundation for the rest of mathematics—what this means, and its implications, are explored in the episode. Joan and Robinson discuss all things set theory, beginning with its origins in the mind of Georg Cantor, its development in the 20th century, some philosophical questions, and some current outstanding problems. They also br...
2023-05-212h 05
Robinson's Podcast91 - John Perry: Procrastination, Personal Identity, and the SelfJohn Perry is Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Stanford University. He was also the co-host with Ken Taylor of the nationally syndicated radio show Philosophy Talk. John has worked in the philosophy of language, mind, and metaphysics, and is well-known for his famous Slingshot Argument with John Barwise. Robinson and John first talk about his book The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing. They then turn to some of his work on identity, personal identity, and the self.
OUTLINE
00:00 In This Episode…
00:58 In...
2023-05-192h 00
Robinson's Podcast90 - David Papineau: The Metaphysics of Sensory ExperienceDavid Papineau is Professor of Philosophy of Science at King’s College London. He also teaches at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and before that he lectured in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge. David’s last appearance on the podcast was episode 62, where he and Robinson spoke about realism, antirealism, and the philosophy of science. This time, however, they discuss the content of his most recent book, The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience (OUP 2021), which is linked below.
The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience: https://a.co/d/6hID7...
2023-05-161h 31
Robinson's Podcast89 - Graham Harman: Speculative Realism & Philosophy of Art and ArchitectureGraham Harman is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Sci-Arc, the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles. He is one of the leading metaphysicians in the continental tradition of philosophy and an influential philosopher of art. Robinson and Graham discuss his work at the forefront of the speculative realist trend in the contemporary continental world, where he is known for his object-oriented ontology, or OOO. They also talk about the philosophy of art and architecture, touching on figures like H.P. Lovecraft and Duchamp, who Graham has written about extensively in his work. Check out Graham’s latest bo...
2023-05-142h 05
Robinson's Podcast88 - Graham Oppy: Ontological Arguments and the Existence of GodGraham Oppy is Professor of Philosophy at Monash University. Before that, he did his undergraduate work in Melbourne and his graduate work at Princeton. Though Graham is best known as a philosopher of religion, he has also published on the philosophy of math, language, aesthetics, and more. In this episode, Robinson and Graham begin by discussing the nature of argument: What makes an argument successful? What’s a good argument? How should we think about arguments in areas of deep disagreement? They then move on to a discussion of ontological arguments in the philosophy of religion, where one argues fo...
2023-05-121h 37
Robinson's Podcast87 - Frank Jackson & Graham Priest: The Philosophy of David LewisFrank Jackson is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University. He is best known for the knowledge argument and Mary’s Room—its accompanying thought experiment—but has published widely in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language. Graham Priest is a Distinguished Professor in the philosophy department at the CUNY Graduate Center. Like Frank, he is one of the most influential philosophers of the past fifty years, and has done important work on a wide range of topics, ranging from the philosophy of mathematics to logic and eastern philosophy. In this episode, Robinson, Frank, and Gr...
2023-05-091h 59
Robinson's Podcast86 - Frances Egan: Mental Representation and Psychological ExplanationFrances Egan is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers, where she works on the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of psychology, and the foundations of cognitive science. Recently she has been researching computational models of cognition and how they relate to representation. Robinson and Frankie talk about the foundations of cognitive science and the nature of mental representations before discussing psychological explanation, different ways of conceiving the mind’s boundaries, and how it interfaces with the rest of the body and environment.
Frankie’s Website: https://frances-egan.org/index.html
Me...
2023-05-071h 35
Robinson's Podcast85 - Ernest Lepore: Linguistic Conventions, Slurs, and Philosophy of LanguageErnest Lepore is a Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers. Though Ernie is best known for his work in the philosophy of language, he has also published on philosophical logic, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind. Though Robinson and Ernie largely discuss the former, their conversation begins with a bevy of wonderful stories from the profession, as Ernie worked and studied with many of the greatest thinkers—and characters—of twentieth century philosophy, including Ed Gettier, Jerry Fodor, Donald Davidson, Michael Dummett, and W.V.O. Quine. They then turn to some quite general problems in the phil...
2023-05-041h 46
Robinson's Podcast84 - Chris Potts: Semantics, Pragmatics, and ChatGPTChris Potts is Professor and Chair of the Department of Linguistics at Stanford University, and also Professor by courtesy in the Department of Computer Science at the same. Chris has worked on a wide variety of topics in linguistics throughout his career, but has published on conventional implicature—check out his book, Logic of Conventional Implicatures (Oxford, 2003)—large language models, and compositional reasoning, among many other subjects. Robinson and Chris begin by discussing the relationship between linguistics and philosophy before turning to topics in semantics and pragmatics—references, the principle of compositionality, swearing, and more. After some thoughts on Chomsk...
2023-05-021h 20
Robinson's Podcast83 - Barry Loewer: Probability, Laws of Nature, and Statistical MechanicsBarry Loewer is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers. Before that he did his PhD in philosophy at Stanford (!). Barry works largely in the philosophy of physics, the philosophy of science, and metaphysics, and is a good friend of and frequent collaborator with another denizen of the Robinson’s Podcast universe, David Albert. It is their joint work on the “Mentaculus,” something approximating a “probability map of the universe,” that occupies much of the discussion in this episode. Robinson and Barry also talk about statistical mechanics and his upcoming book, What Breathes Fire into the Equations (Oxford University Press, to be rele...
2023-04-301h 27
Robinson's Podcast82 - Jonathan Wolff: Cities, States, and Political PhilosophyJonathan Wolff is Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy at the University of Oxford. He works in numerous areas of political philosophy. Some topics he has researched include equality and poverty, and he has worked in applied areas like Covid policy and gambling. In this episode, Jonathan and Robinson begin with a discussion of the nature of political philosophy before turning to some modern historical perspectives on the state, starting with Hobbes and traveling up through Marx and Rawls. They then turn to his current work in partnership with Avner de-Shalit on cities and equality. Some of...
2023-04-271h 53
Robinson's Podcast81 - Anubav Vasudevan: Mathematics, Physics, and History of LogicAnubav Vasudevan is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago, where he works in formal epistemology and the history of logic, though he has published in a number of other areas. Anubav and Robinson talk about his time at Columbia University studying with the mathematician, probability theorist, and philosopher Haim Gaifman before discussing some of Anubav’s thoughts on mathematics, physics, logic, and how they relate to philosophy. In the second half of the conversation they move on to some of Anubav’s work in the history of logic, touching on Leibniz and the Peri...
2023-04-261h 57
Robinson's Podcast80 - Pamela Hieronymi: Free Will and Moral ResponsibilityPamela Hieronymi is Professor of Philosophy at UCLA. Before that, she did her undergraduate studies at Princeton and received her PhD from Harvard. Her work extends in a variety of directions, but some areas she works in include moral psychology, the philosophy of mind, ethics, and the philosophy of action. In this episode, she and Robinson discuss free will and moral responsibility, the topic of an upcoming book entitled Minds that Matter. Pamela begins by introducing moral psychology and the role of analytic philosophy in the debate over free will. Then she and Robinson discuss the extent to which...
2023-04-231h 16
Robinson's Podcast79 - Rachel Barney: Ancient Philosophy and the SophistsRachel Barney is Professor of Classics and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. She received her PhD at Princeton and has taught at the University of Ottawa, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. She has worked widely across ancient philosophy, from the sophists to the Neoplatonists, though her primary focus is on Plato. In this episode, Robinson and Rachel discuss the sophists, beginning with just who they were and why they have been so maligned in contemporary discourse—even the word sophist today has pejorative connotations—and continuing through some of their most important thinkers, like Gorgias and...
2023-04-221h 33
Robinson's Podcast78 - Paul Horwich: Truth, Realism, and Moral FactsPaul Horwich is Professor Philosophy at NYU. He has worked in a number of areas of philosophy, but is especially well-known for his writing on the philosophy of language, particularly with regard to truth and meaning—naturally, he has books by the same names, Truth (Oxford, 1990) and Meaning (Oxford, 1998). Robinson and Paul discuss the relationship between his work on these topics and the philosophy he started off researching—science and physics—before moving on to the question of philosophical realism across a number of domains before focusing on moral realism and whether there are such things as moral facts.
2023-04-201h 16
Robinson's Podcast77 - Stephen Yablo: Non-Existence Claims, Jokes, and Defining PhilosophyStephen Yablo is David W. Skinner Professor of Philosophy at MIT. Before MIT, he taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Steve works in metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, and the philosophy of mind and language, though his work extends into other areas of philosophy as well. In this conversation, for instance, Robinson and Steve discuss the nature of philosophy and what distinguishes it from other fields, as well as the philosophy of jokes and humor. They also speak about the philosophy of language, and more particularly how to deal with negative existential statements (sentences of the form “such-and-such do...
2023-04-181h 55
Robinson's Podcast76 - Nora Boyd, Siska de Baerdemaeker, & Vera Matarese: The Philosophy of AstrophysicsRobinson’s Podcast #76 - Nora Boyd, Siska de Baerdemaeker, & Vera Matarese: The Philosophy of Astrophysics
Nora Boyd is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Siena College. Siska de Baerdemaeker is a Researcher at Stockholm University. Vera Matarese is Assistant Professor in Philosophy of Science at the University of Perugia. Both Nora and Siska received their PhDs in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Pittsburgh, while Vera received hers in the Philosophy of Science at the University of Hong Kong. Along with Kevin Heng, Chair Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at the Ludwig Maximilian Un...
2023-04-151h 56
Robinson's Podcast75 - Jody Azzouni: Formal Languages, Proof, and the Foundations of MathematicsJody Azzouni is Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. While Jody is best known for his nominalist stance in the philosophy of mathematics, he is also an author of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Robinson and Jody discuss one of Jody’s poems in detail before moving on to the philosophy of mathematics and logic. They go over the distinction between natural and formal languages, the roles and varieties of proof in mathematics, and whether mathematics can have foundations. This is Jody’s second appearance on Robinson’s podcast. On his first appearance, episode #45, he and Robinson spoke about the debate...
2023-04-131h 55
Robinson's Podcast74 - Stephen Darwall: Violence, Second-Personal Ethics, Philosophy of the HeartStephen Darwall is Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy at Yale University and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. He is a world-renowned moral philosopher who has worked broadly across the ethical landscape, making important contributions to Kant scholarship, legal philosophy, deontology, and countless other areas. In this episode, Robinson and Steve talk about Steve’s strabismus (a visual impairment) and how it affects the way he sees the world, violence and human dignity, second-personal ethics, and Steve’s work on the relationship between philosophy and the heart. This is Steve’s second appearance on Rob...
2023-04-102h 12
Robinson's Podcast73 - Craig Callender: Pseudoscience, Conspiracy Theories, and PhilosophyCraig Callender is Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Institute for Practical Ethics at UC San Diego. Craig works across the philosophy of science, and has published research on the philosophy of physics, applied ethics, the metaphysics of time, and other related areas. In this episode, Craig and Robinson discuss the content of a course he’s been teaching called Science vs Pseudoscience. More particularly, they talk about the boundary between science and pseudoscience, as well as case studies of science, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories, including super-string theory, psychoanalysis, astrology, and more. Craig’s most recent book, What Make...
2023-04-081h 39
Robinson's Podcast72 - Eric Trexler: Philosophy and Methodology in Sports ScienceEric Trexler received his PhD in Human Movement Science from the medical school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is a professional body builder and a sports nutrition researcher, and the co-owner of Stronger By Science, MASS Research Review, and the MacroFactor nutrition app, as well as the co-host of the terrific Stronger By Science podcast. Robinson and Eric discuss some philosophical concerns in sports science, including methodological limitations in study design and human error in scientific reasoning. Among other topics, they address the ecological validity of mechanistic research, ways in which funding and practical constraints...
2023-04-061h 45
Robinson's Podcast71 - Peter Adamson: Plotinus, Porphyry, and NeoplatonismPeter Adamson is Professor of Late Ancient and Arabic Philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at King's College London. He’s also the host of the podcast History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps and the author of the book series by the same name. Robinson and Peter talk about Neoplatonism—a philosophical movement in late antiquity—and its great thinkers, including Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus, as well as the many issues they thought and wrote about, such as evil, theology, logic, and vegetarianism.
OUTLINE:
0...
2023-04-031h 32
Robinson's Podcast70 - Elisabeth Camp: Emily Dickinson, Figurative Language, and RepresentationElisabeth Camp is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers, where she works on the philosophy of language, mind, and aesthetics. As she puts it, her research “focuses on thoughts and utterances that don’t fit standard propositional models.” Liz and Robinson spend the first third of their conversation discussing the poetry of Emily Dickinson and its connections to philosophy. They then move on to the substantial corpus of Liz’s work, touching on frames—or representational devices—various difficult-to-analyze speech acts and devices like insinuation and metaphor, and the semantics of maps. Keep up with Liz and her research at http://www.e...
2023-04-013h 10
Robinson's Podcast69 - Frank Jackson: Conceptual Analysis, Physicalism, and Mary’s RoomFrank Jackson is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University. He is best known for the knowledge argument and Mary’s Room—its accompanying thought experiment—but has published widely in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language. Frank and Robinson discuss conceptual analysis—or the philosophical technique of examining the meaning, content, or definition of a concept to resolve questions about it—as well as physicalism, reference in the philosophy of language, the knowledge argument, and more. Much of the material discussed in this episode can be found in greater depth in Frank’s 1998 book, From M...
2023-03-302h 03
Robinson's Podcast68 - Simon Blackburn: Moral Realism, Antirealism, and QuasirealismSimon Blackburn was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Though he has worked in many areas of philosophy, he is best known for his contributions to metaethics and the philosophy of language. Simon and Robinson discuss the distinction between ethics and metaethics before primarily focusing on the latter, where they explore the concept of realism. Simon’s latest books are Lust and Mirror, Mirror.
OUTLINE:
4:31 Simon’s History with Metaethics
8:20 Distinguishing Ethics and...
2023-03-271h 08
Robinson's Podcast67 - David Albert & Tim Maudlin: The Philosophical Foundations of Quantum TheoryDavid Albert is the Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, where he directs the Philosophical Foundations of Physics program. Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at NYU. Both David and Tim are renowned as leading philosophers of physics, though their work extends beyond that to the philosophy of science and metaphysics. David is a prior guest (episodes 23 and 30) of Robinson’s Podcast, as is Tim (episode 46). David, Tim, and Robinson discuss the foundations of quantum theory, beginning with its historical motivation, tracking through some important concepts—superposition and the measurement problem—and then exploring some of its ph...
2023-03-252h 09
Robinson's Podcast66 - Noam Chomsky: History and Philosophy of LinguisticsNoam Chomsky is Professor of Linguistics Emeritus at MIT and Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona. He not only counts as among the most influential linguists of all time, but he has played a major role in the development of twentieth and twenty-first century philosophy, cognitive science, and political theory. Noam and Robinson talk about some of the major topics in modern linguistics, ranging from generative and universal grammar to innateness hypotheses and the current limitations of large language models for studying human linguistic faculties. There are also philosophical dimensions to the conversation, as Noam touches...
2023-03-231h 04
Robinson's Podcast65 - Tania Lombrozo: Explanation and Human PsychologyTania Lombrozo is Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Psychology at Princeton University, where she directs the Concepts & Cognition Lab. Before that, she did her undergraduate work at Stanford University (!), her graduate work at Harvard University, and then taught at the University of California, Berkeley. Robinson and Tania discuss her work on explanation. Among other things, they touch on our intuitions about what makes explanations good, what makes certain observations seem to demand explanation, some of the differences between religious and scientific explanations, and how we reason about morally charged situations. Keep up with Tania’s work through:
2023-03-201h 25
Robinson's Podcast64 - Sarah Moss: Probabilistic KnowledgeSarah Moss is the William Wilhartz Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Law by courtesy at the University of Michigan. She works primarily in epistemology and the philosophy of language, though in the case of this conversation her work has an important bearing on legal philosophy. Robinson and Sarah talk about her book Probabilistic Knowledge, which argues that you can know something that you believe even if you do not believe it fully, and as she quite aptly points out, “The central theses of the book have significant consequences for social and political questions concerning racial profiling, statistical evidence, an...
2023-03-182h 31
Robinson's Podcast63 - Thomas Ryckman & Mark Wilson: The State of Analytic PhilosophyThomas Ryckman is Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, where he works on the philosophy of physics. Mark Wilson is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, where he works at the intersection of the philosophy of math and physics on the one side and metaphysics and the philosophy of language on the other. Tom, Mark, and Robinson discuss the present state of analytic philosophy, the dominant tradition in the United States, including some potential obstacles and important ideas of the twentieth century that have been forgotten.
OUTLINE:
00:00 Introduction
2023-03-161h 39
Robinson's Podcast62 - David Papineau: Realism, Antirealism, and The Philosophy of ScienceDavid Papineau is Professor of Philosophy of Science at King’s College London. He also teaches at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and before that he lectured in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge. Robinson and David speak broadly about the philosophy of science. Some topics they touch on include the distinction between realism and antirealism, the role of a philosopher of science in actual scientific practice, and the current replication crisis. They finish with an introduction to the statistical theory of causation. For some background information, listen to David’s episode of P...
2023-03-131h 44
Robinson's Podcast61 - Keith Frankish: Illusionism and The Philosophy of MindKeith Frankish is an Honorary Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Sheffield, a Visiting Research Fellow with the Open University, an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Program at the University of Crete, and editor of the Cambridge University Press series Elements in Philosophy of Mind. He is best known for his “two-level” view of the human mind, covered in his book Mind and Supermind, and his defense of the philosophical thesis known as illusionism, which holds that phenomenal consciousness is an illusion. Robinson and Keith discuss a variety of aspects of illusionism, including just what...
2023-03-112h 09
Robinson's Podcast60 - Joel David Hamkins & Graham Priest: The Liar Paradox & The Set-Theoretic MultiverseJoel David Hamkins is the O’Hara Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at the University of Notre Dame, where he recently moved from the University of Oxford. Joel is one of the world’s leading set theorists and philosophers of mathematics. Graham Priest is a Distinguished Professor in the philosophy department at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is one of the most influential philosophers of the past fifty years, and has done important work on a wide range of topics, ranging from the philosophy of mathematics (his doctorate is in mathematics from the London School of Economics) to logic and...
2023-03-092h 23
Robinson's Podcast59 - Tamar Schapiro: Inclination, Will, and The Animal SelfTamar Schapiro is Professor of Philosophy at MIT. Her work centers on value theory, the history of ethics, and how this relates to human agency and reasoning. Robinson and Tamar’s discussion center around her latest book, Feeling Like It: A Theory of Inclination and Will, which explores the relationship between the two in a Kantian framework. They also talk about her experience teaching ethics at STEM-focused schools (Tamar taught at Stanford for fifteen years before moving to the east coast), Kant’s thoughts on free will, topics in the history of ethics, and why she teaches Ayn Rand’s phil...
2023-03-061h 31
Robinson's Podcast58 - Huw Price: Philosophy of Time, Boltzmann Brains, and RetrocausalityHuw Price is the former Bertrand Russell Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and was before that Challis Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Time at the University of Sydney, and then—even before that—was Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh. Huw is an expert across a wide variety of subdomains within the family of philosophy of science and physics, and in this episode he and Robinson discuss topics drawn from the philosophy of time, ranging from its flow and direction to its relationship to causation and...
2023-03-041h 02
Robinson's Podcast57 - Richard Kimberly Heck: Reference, Names, and the Philosophy of LanguageRichard Kimberly Heck has been a professor of philosophy at Brown University since 2005, at which time they left their post at Harvard, where they had taught for over a decade. On the way to receiving their PhD in philosophy and linguistics at MIT, they studied at Duke and Oxford. Riki has also been a guest on three prior episodes of Robinson’s Podcast—5, 17, and 41—that covered the philosophy of sex, pornography, and gender. In this episode, however, Robinson and Riki turn to the philosophy of language, and more particularly the reference relation. They pick up with Frege and travel up thr...
2023-03-022h 44
Robinson's Podcast55 - Alison Fernandes: Time Travel and CausationAlison Fernandes is a professor of philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. Prior to that, she did her graduate work at Columbia University, where she studied with two other denizens of the Robinson’s Podcast universe, David Albert and Achille Varzi. Alison is the author of the upcoming book with Cambridge University Press, The Temporal Asymmetry of Causation, some of the contents of which are the subject of this episode. After rehashing the dominant theories of causation, Alison and Robinson discussion backward causation and time travel, the temporal asymmetry of causation, and Alison’s agency theory of causation. You can keep...
2023-02-251h 00