Robinson's Podcast - Robinson Erhardt

Latest Episodes:

51 - Scott Shapiro: Hackers, Cybersecurity, and Legal Philosophy Feb 13, 2023

Show notes

Scott Shapiro is the Charles F. Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School, where he is also the founding director of the Yale CyberSecurity Lab. Robinson and Scott talk about studying at Columbia University under the auspices of the legendary Isaac Levi, Sidney Morgenbesser, and Haim Gaifman before discussing the philosophy of law, one of Scott’s areas of expertise. Among the topics they touch on are the distinction between analytic and normative jurisprudence, the problem of the chicken and the egg, and progress in legal thought from Austin to Hart and beyond. Then they turn to Scott’s upcoming book, Fancy Bear goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks, where Scott explores the intersection of cybersecurity, hacking, and legal philosophy. Scott is also the author of Legality and the host of the Jurisprudence Course podcast, the latter of which will soon have a second season. You can keep up with Scott on Twitter at @scottjshapiro, and preorder Fancy Bear Goes Phishing on Amazon.

Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: https://a.co/d/aPv2zpY

Legality: https://a.co/d/1qYg0OY

Jurisprudence Course: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yOIMnVASRLN2nPLlBL0Dn?si=0de8b550346942d6

Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottjshapiro

Outline:

00:00 In This Episode

00:20 Introduction

3:35 Scott the Jurisprude

7:49 War Stories From Columbia

18:36 Analytic Versus Normative Jurisprudence

22:23 The Chicken And The Egg Problem For Jurisprudence

28:03 Austin, Hart, and Progress in Legal Philosophy

44:43 Fancy Bear Goes Phishing

43:23: Cybersecurity and Legal Philosophy

59:02:40 Hacking Paris Hilton’s Cell Phone

1:05:07 The Psychology of Hackers

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.

linktree: https://linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt

50 - Jonathan Schaffer: Monism, Grounding, and The Fundamental Level of Reality Feb 09, 2023

Show notes

Jonathan Schaffer is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He is an acclaimed metaphysician with a unique mind and approach to philosophy (and who has exquisite taste in epigraphs). Jonathan is best known for his work on monism, in which he contends that the cosmos is the lone fundamental object in reality, and on the grounding relation. He and Robinson begin by exploring monism, including its relationship to contemporary developments in physics, and then move on to the grounding relation, explicating just what this is and how it marks a departure from the dominant Quinean view of metaphysics.

linktree: https://linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt

Outline:

00:00 In This Episode

1:07 Introduction

4:54 Jonathan’s Epigraphs

10:02 What Is a Monist?

14:11 How Jonathan Became a Monist

17:06 Breeds of Monism

24:09 Mereological Nihilism

39:14 Have Jonathan’s Views Shifted Over The Years?

41:25 The Ontological Priority of the Whole

48:16 Monism and Quantum Entanglement

54:42 Occam’s Laser

59:40 Modal Considerations for Monism

1:03:17 Jonathan’s Interest in Grounding

1:06:33 Quinean Metaphysics and Grounding

1:15:22 The Aristotelian View of Metaphysics

1:18:21 Carnap and Grounding

1:21:33 What Grounds What?

1:26:32 Debunking Metaphysical Intuitions With Cognitive Science

1:39:38 Ground Functionalism

1:48:58 Grounding in Feminist Metaphysics

1:55:30 Jonathan’s Philosophical Program

49 - Stephen Darwall: The History of Modern Ethics Feb 06, 2023

Show notes

Stephen 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. Steve and Robinson discuss the history of modern ethics, beginning with Hugo Grotius and traveling up through Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Bentham, and Smith before ending with Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche’s attack on morality.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt

Outline:

00:00 In This Episode

00:22 Introduction

4:04 Steve’s Time at Yale

12:39 Ethics and Normativity

19:56 Hugo Grotius and the Birth of Modern Ethics

30:18 Hobbes on Morality

39:33 Hume on Morality

45:56 Kant on Morality

54:59 Jeremy Bentham on Morality

58:31 Adam Smith on Morality

1:10:51 A Brief Diatribe on Google

1:16:28 The Continental/Analytic Divide

1:23:17 Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche’s Attack on Morality

1:35:21 Are Moral Philosophers Moral?

48 - Patricia Churchland: Neurophilosophy, Free Will, & Consciousness Feb 02, 2023

Show notes

Patricia Churchland is UC President’s Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of California, San Diego. She is among the most well-known and impactful figures working in the philosophy of mind, and a prominent early neurophilosopher who advocated the importance of neuroscience in the philosophy of mind. Pat and Robinson discuss three broad topics: neurophilosophy and ethics—particularly with reference to two of her recent books, Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality and Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition—what neuroscience has to say about the problem of free will, and the neurophilosophical approach to consciousness. You can keep up with Pat’s work at patriciachurchland.com, as well as on Twitter, @patchurchland.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt

Outline:

00:00 In This Episode

00:36 Introduction

3:07 A Family of Neuroscientists

12:27 What Is Neurophilosophy?

15:44 Neuroscience and Morality

22:13 Evolution and Morality

33:00 Mirror Neurons and Imitation

38:56 Neuroscience and Metaethics

47:58 Neurophilosophy, Free Will, & The Self

1:05:24 Neuroscience & David Chalmers’ Hard Problem of Consciousness

47: Achille Varzi: Metaphysics, Ontology, & Nominalism Jan 30, 2023

Show notes

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 world-renowned metaphysicist and logician, and widely regarded as the greatest living mereologist. Yet despite all this Robinson asks Achille about his sleep habits, though afterward they discuss some more important philosophical questions: What is ontology? What is metaphysics, and how is it different from physics? After some tangents on nominalism and truthmakers, the conversation ends with a reflection on some of the late Saul Kripke’s contributions to philosophy.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt

Outline:

00:00 How Kangaroos Got Their Name

00:52 Introduction

4:54 Achille’s Start in Philosophy

11:24 Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein

16:57 Writing Philosophy in a Second Language

23:01 Achille’s Absurd Sleeping Habits

30:41 What is Metaphysics?

43:01 Distinguishing Physics From Metaphysics

50:48 Ontology, Metaphysics, and Truthmakers

01:23:37 Saul Kripke's Contributions to Philosophy

46 - Tim Maudlin: Laws of Nature, Absolute Space, & Free Will Jan 26, 2023

Show notes

Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at NYU. Before that, he did his undergraduate work in philosophy and physics at Yale and received his PHD from Pittsburgh in the History and Philosophy of Science. Tim is renowned as one of the leading philosophers of physics, and he also works in the philosophy of science and metaphysics. Among other things, Robinson and Tim talk about whether metaphysics should come prior to or after physics, the debates over absolute time and space, free will, the nature of physical laws, and David Lewis’s views on the Humean supermosaic. You can find out more about Tim and his work on his website, www.tim-maudlin.site.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt

Outline:

00:00 Introduction

2:35 Studying Physics and Philosophy

8:38 Theoretical Physics, Foundations, and Metaphysics

15:54 Physics and Free Will

26:17 The Mathematical Structure of the Universe

37:49 Hume, Lewis, and the Supermosaic

49:16 Laws of Nature

1:04:02 Moral facts

1:18:03 Absolute and Relative Space

1:34:27 Space and the Ether

1:39:31 The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence

1:46:08 Absolute Space, Time, and Relativity

1:53:07 The Infinity of Time and Space

45 - Jody Azzouni: Nominalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics Jan 23, 2023

Show notes

Jody Azzouni is a 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. He and Robinson talk about his love of writing and how his interest in mathematics bloomed during in his time spent at NYU and CUNY. They then move on to 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.

Outline:

00:00 Introduction

3:16 Jody’s Writing Background

9:05 Jody’s Poetry

21:20 The Relationship Between Jody’s Philosophy and Everything Else

32:33 Jody’s Interest in the Philosophy of Mathematics

40:02 The Platonist/Nominalist Opposition in the Philosophy of Mathematics

49:29 The Platonist Conception of Mathematical Objects

52:50 A Nominalist Argument Against Mathematical Realism

1:09:41 Varieties of Mathematical Nominalism

1:18:55 Nominalism in Mathematics and Metaphysics

1:24:39 Ontological Commitment in the Vernacular

1:35:30 A Poetry Reading

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt

Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinsonerhardt

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44 - Sophie Grace Chappell: Epiphanies, Ethics, and the Philosophy of Literature Jan 19, 2023

Show notes

Sophie Grace Chappell is Professor of Philosophy at the Open University in the UK. Before that she taught at the University of Dundee and Oxford. Sophie has a wide variety of interests, including ancient philosophy, ethics, and the philosophy of literature. She and Robinson speak about her latest book, Epiphanies: An Ethics of Experience. More particularly, their discussion centers around philosophy and literature—including a wonderful reading of Gerard Manley Hopkins—the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, and some potential pitfalls of taking a theory-building approach to moral philosophy.

Outline:

00:00 Introduction

2:27 Literae Humaniores

14:42 The Etymology of "Outrage"

19:19 Literature and the Phenomenology of Being Human

36:51 Ethics and Aesthetics

49:13 Poetry and Philosophy

53:40 What Are Epiphanies?

58:56 Gerard Manley Hopkins and His Terrible Sonnets

1:10:20 James Joyce and Epiphanies

1:14:35 Theory-Building Approaches to Ethics

1:24:41 Sophie's Approach to Ethics

1:29:49 Testing Ethical Theories

1:32:12 Sophie the Mountaineer

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43 - Eric Schwitzgebel: The Philosophical Weirdness of the World Jan 16, 2023

Show notes

Eric Schwitzgebel is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Riverside. Before that, he did his undergraduate work at Stanford, and then received his doctorate from the University of California Berkeley. Eric has worked on an extremely wide array of topics, ranging from Chinese philosophy to philosophy of mind, metaphilosophy, and metaphysics. In this conversation, however, Robinson and Eric talk about his upcoming book on philosophy and weirdness. In particular, they discuss why the United States might be conscious, what Kant and cyberpunk have in common, the moral value of alien microbes, and a lot more about garden snails than you thought you could ever find interesting. Keep up with Eric through his blog, the Splintered Mind, or on Twitter @eschwitz.

Outline:

00:00 Introduction

3:07 A Man of Many Interests

4:21 The Weirdness of the World

12:32 Why the United States May Be Conscious

25:50 Kant and Cyberpunk

35:22 Experimental Evidence for an External World

46:54 Are Ethicists More Ethical Than the Rest of Us?

1:04:47 What It's Like to Be a Garden Snail

1:23:07 The Moral Value of Alien Microbes

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt

Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinsonerhardt

YouTube (Robinson's Podcast): youtube.com/@robinsonspodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robinsonerhardt/

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42 - Joel David Hamkins: Paradox, Infinity, & The Foundations of Mathematics Jan 12, 2023

Show notes

Joel 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 leading set theorists and philosophers of mathematics in the world, and he and Robinson discuss a lot—Hilbert’s Hotel, the continuum hypothesis, the set-theoretic multiverse, and even Joel’s dapper hat collection—but the main subject is his upcoming book, The Book of the Infinite, which is an accessible text on paradoxes and infinity. Joel has made the novel move of serializing it on Substack, so you can participate in its creation by checking out the link below, and otherwise see what he’s thinking about and working on through Twitter, MathOverflow, and his blog. The conversation grows technical from 1:10:26-2:00:25, but for those to whom that doesn’t appeal there are timestamps to navigate around this portion of the show.

Substack: https://joeldavidhamkins.substack.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JDHamkins

MathOverflow: https://mathoverflow.net/users/1946/joel-david-hamkins

Joel’s Blog: http://jdh.hamkins.org

OUTLINE:

00:00 Introduction

2:52 Is Joel a Mathematician or a Philosopher?

6:13 The Philosophical Influence of Hugh Woodin

10:29 The Intersection of Set Theory and Philosophy of Math

16:29 Serializing the Book of the Infinite

20:05 Zeno of Elea, Continuity, and Geometric Series

39:39 Infinite Games and the Chocolatier

53:35 Hilbert's Hotel

1:10:26 Cantor's Theorem

1:31:37 The Continuum Hypothesis

1:43:02 The Set-Theoretic Multiverse

2:00:25 Berry's Paradox and Large Numbers

2:16:15 Skolem's Paradox and Indescribable Numbers

2:28:41 Pascal's Wager and Reasoning Around Remote Events

2:49:35 MathOverflow

3:04:40 Joel's Impeccable Fashion Sense

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt

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Twitch (Robinson Eats): https://www.twitch.tv/robinsonerhardt

YouTube (Robinson Eats): youtube.com/@robinsoneats

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@robinsonerhardt

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