Robinson's Podcast - Robinson Erhardt

Latest Episodes:

91 - John Perry: Procrastination, Personal Identity, and the Self May 19, 2023

Show notes

John 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 Introduction

02:43 In Defense of Procrastination

10:45 Dialogues and Philosophical Writing

23:17 Identity and Personal Identity

35:37 Memory and Personal Identity

47:39 The Body-Identity Theory

54:18 Parfit and Lewis on Identity

01:03:31 John and the Memory Theory

01:21:46 Death and Identity

01:32:46 Personhood and the Self

01:54:54 Could You Be Someone Else?

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.

90 - David Papineau: The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience May 16, 2023

Show notes

David 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/6hID7Lf

David’s Website: https://www.davidpapineau.co.uk

Twitter: @davidpapineau

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

01:38 Introduction

02:52 David’s Philosophical Interests

08:16 Distinguishing Sensory and Perceptual Experience

21:57 Naive Realism and the Metaphysics of Sensory Experience

34:09 Representationalism and the Metaphysics of Experience

01:02:02 The Transparency of Experience

01:15:28 Objections

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

89 - Graham Harman: Speculative Realism & Philosophy of Art and Architecture May 14, 2023

Show notes

Graham 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 book, Architecture and Objects, linked below:

Architecture and Objects: https://a.co/d/ewHg5Ur

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

01:54 Introduction

05:22 Graham and Continental Philosophy

13:04 Speculative Realism and Object-Oriented Ontology

27:05 On Debating Slavoj Žižek

30:28 Fictional Objects

34:42 Real and Sensual Objects

52:14 Aesthetics OOO

59:47 Was Performance the First Art?

01:07:53 H.P. Lovecraft and Philosophy

01:17:33 Surrealism, Dada, and Literalism

01:23:19 Architecture, Philosophy, and Metaphysics

01:46:06 Philosophical Formalism and Architecture

02:00:20 Final Thoughts

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

88 - Graham Oppy: Ontological Arguments and the Existence of God May 12, 2023

Show notes

Graham 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 for the existence of god—or gods—without any prior assumptions.

Ontological Arguments: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/

Majesty of Reason: https://www.youtube.com/@MajestyofReason

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

00:40 Introduction

05:04 Graham and the Philosophy of Religion

11:45 Arguments

14:12 What Makes a Good Argument?

38:00 How to Talk Around Deep Disagreement

48:23 How Arguments Vary Across Disciplines

56:13 Ontological Arguments for the Existence of God

01:31:29 Cosmological Arguments

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

87 - Frank Jackson & Graham Priest: The Philosophy of David Lewis May 09, 2023

Show notes

Frank 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 Graham talk about David Lewis and his immense legacy in the philosophical world. They cover his character—Frank and Graham were friends with him for many years—as well as some of his work, ranging from the thesis of modal realism to Humean supervenience and the philosophy of set theory. David Lewis: ⁠https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/david-lewis/⁠ Graham’s Website: ⁠https://grahampriest.net⁠ OUTLINE 00:00 In This Episode… 01:17 Introduction 07:54 David Lewis as a Friend and Philosopher 24:12 Australian Philosophy 28:53 Lewisian Themes 34:30 Modal Realism 52:43 Kripke and Lewis on Possible Worlds 58:07 Making Use of Possible Worlds 01:23:29 Humean Supervenience 01:38:19 Set Theory and Mereology 01:45:19 Final Thoughts Robinson’s Website: ⁠http://robinsonerhardt.com⁠ Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.

86 - Frances Egan: Mental Representation and Psychological Explanation May 07, 2023

Show notes

Frances 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

Mental Representation: https://plato.stanford.edu/ENTRIES/mental-representation/

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

01:21 Introduction

07:10 Frankie and the Philosophy of Mind

11:04 The Foundations of Cognitive Science

13:20 What are Mental Representations?

26:49 Eliminativism and Representations

32:33 A Deflationary Account

40:51 Naturalism and Cognitive Science

55:39 Psychological Explanation

01:03:02 The Extended Mind and Embodied Cognition

01:21:14 The New Mechanists

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

85 - Ernest Lepore: Linguistic Conventions, Slurs, and Philosophy of Language May 04, 2023

Show notes

Ernest 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 philosophy language, discussion the relationship between language and thought, meta-linguistic negotiation, and conventions before going through the main arc of his book on slurs jointly authored with Una Stojnic of Princeton University. Though Ernie is the author of too many books and articles to list within the confines of this description, a recent book mentioned many times in the conversation is Imagination and Convention: Distinguishing Grammar and Inference in Language (Oxford University Press, 2015), which Ernie cowrote with Mathew Stone, chair of the Department of Computer Science at Rutgers.

OUTLINE

00:00 IN THIS EPISODE

00:38 Introduction

05:33 Ernie’s Interest in the Philosophy of Language

14:17 Working with Ed Gettier, Jerry Fodor, Donald Davidson, and Michael Dummett

30:44 Language, Thought, and Convention

44:44 What is Meta-Linguistic Negotiation?

51:53 What is a Slur?

01:04:10 Philosophical Accounts of Slurs

01:13:50 Pejorative Content Accounts of Slurs

01:21:38 Non-Content Accounts of Slurs

01:30:52 A New Theory of Slurs

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

84 - Chris Potts: Semantics, Pragmatics, and ChatGPT May 02, 2023

Show notes

Chris 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 Chomsky’s legacy in linguistics, they talk about the impact of ChatGPT on the classroom and whether large language models are capable of understanding.

00:00 In This Episode…

01:13 Introduction

04:16 Chris and Linguistics

12:34 Linguistics and Philosophy

22:43 Proper Names and Reference

27:00 The Principle of Compositionality

41:59 Adjectives, Innateness, and Chomsky

57:36 Quantifiers

01:01:36 Swearing and Linguistics

01:04:42 ChatGPT in the Linguistics Classroom

01:12:00 Does ChatGPT Understand?

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

83 - Barry Loewer: Probability, Laws of Nature, and Statistical Mechanics Apr 30, 2023

Show notes

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, 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 released fall 2023 or early 2024), which is about laws, chances, and fundamental ontology. Check out Barry’s book on David: Essays on David Albert’s Time and Chance.

Background on Counterfactuals: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/counterfactuals/

Background on Statistical Mechanics: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/statphys-statmech/

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

00:29 Introduction

06:21 Barry‘s Road to the Philosophy of Physics

28:37 Fire in the Equations

43:16 Conditional Probability

54:11 Non-Humean and Humean Accounts of Laws

01:06:44 Probability

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

82 - Jonathan Wolff: Cities, States, and Political Philosophy Apr 27, 2023

Show notes

Jonathan 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 Jonathan’s books include Disadvantage (Oxford, 2007), An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Oxford, 1996, and soon to be in its fourth edition), and Why Read Marx Today? (Oxford, 2002).

Jonathan’s Website: https://jonathanwolff.wordpress.com

OUTLINE:

00:00 In This Episode…

00:35 Introduction

04:17 Jonathan’s Start in Political Philosophy

08:46 What is Political Philosophy?

18:24 Methodology in Political Science and Political Philosophy

22:42 Hobbes and the State of Nature

45:34 Rousseau on Government

51:12 John Stuart Mill on Liberty

1:01:25 Covid Policy and Moral Philosophy

1:08:49 Marx and the State