Robinson's Podcast - Robinson Erhardt

Latest Episodes:

41 - Richard Kimberly Heck: Philosophy of Sex, Pornography, and Gender Jan 09, 2023

Show notes

Richard 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. While Professor Heck’s primary research focus has been logic and Frege, over the past few years they have shifted to the philosophy of sex and pornography. This is Robinson and Riki’s third conversation on the subjects. Their first and second were episodes 5 and 17, though the installments are not sequential and only linked by topic. Among other things, Robinson and Riki discuss empirical approaches to the philosophy of sex, understanding oneself as a gendered person, and the depiction of oral sex in pornography.

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40 - L.A. Paul: Cognitive Science, Metaphysics, & Transformative Experience Jan 05, 2023

Show notes

L.A. Paul is the Millstone Family Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Cognitive Science at Yale University. After doing her graduate work on causation and time at Princeton under the guidance of David Lewis, Laurie wrote her groundbreaking book Transformative Experience, and since then has been exploring the intersection of cognitive science and metaphysics (in addition to a myriad of other pursuits). Laurie and Robinson talk about how she went from her undergraduate studies in chemistry and biology to philosophy, the origins of Transformative Experience, and what cognitive science can contribute to the philosophy of time and causation.

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39 - Peter Adamson: Islamic Philosophy, Mysticism, Dead Languages, & Eternity Jan 02, 2023

Show notes

Peter 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 Islamic philosophy broadly conceived, as well as some of its great philosophers—Avicenna in particular—and its most fascinating debates.

00:00 Introduction

04:46 Can Anything Be the Subject of Philosophy?

11:03 Dead and Living Languages

24:35 What Is Islamic Philosophy?

40:28 Some Distinctive Problems of Islamic Philosophy

50:40 Metaphysical Debates about the Eucharist and Koran

59:21 Free Will, Islamic Philosophy, and the Koran

01:08:56 Islam and the Eternity of the World

01:29:48 Avicenna's Flying Man Argument

01:41:25 Al-Farabi and Illuminationism

01:47:54 What Is Philosophical Mysticism?

01:55:00 Islamic Mysticism and Sufism

01:59:18 Philosophy, Reincarnation, and Vegetarianism

02:03:37 The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

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38 - Graham Priest: The Metaphysics of Nothingness Dec 26, 2022

Show notes

Graham Priest is a Distinguished Professor in the philosophy department at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is one of the most influential living philosophers, 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 eastern philosophy. In this episode, Robinson and Graham discuss the metaphysics of nothingness and non-being, touching on—among other things—Zen Buddhism, Quine’s conception of ontological commitment, impossible worlds, and why there’s something rather than nothing.

(00:00) Introduction

(04:59) Graham's Path to Philosophy

(08:45) On Analytic and Continental Philosophy

(17:33) On Quine

(27:23) Quine, Quantifiers, and What There Is

(41:51) On Nonexistent Objects

(47:02) Noneism and the Philosophy of Mathematics

(01:14:14) On Impossible Worlds

(01:24:35) Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

(01:30:55) Zen, Buddhism, and Nothingness

(01:46:36) The Nyāya Philosophy of Nothingness

(01:52:59) Graham's Interest in Eastern Philosophy

(02:01:04) Philosophy as World-Building

(02:05:36) Sylvan's Box

(02:10:06) Zen and How to Live One's Life

(02:20:28) Zen on Mind and Language

(02:30:08) The Basics of Buddhist Ethics

(02:52:08) Graham the Martial Artist

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37 - Paul B Woodruff: Philosophy and War Dec 22, 2022

Show notes

Paul B Woodruff is a professor in the philosophy department at the University of Texas at Austin. Over the course of his extensive career he’s published numerous books, articles, and translations covering areas ranging from ancient philosophy and Greek tragedy to ethics and aesthetics. In the years between completing his undergraduate work in classics at Princeton and then getting his PhD in philosophy at the same university, he served in the Vietnam War, and it is largely this experience and the philosophical thought that emerged from it which Robinson and Paul discuss. Along with other topics, they talk about the ethics of killing civilians, just war theory, and Socrates’ practical ethics.

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36 - Justin Clarke-Doane: What is Mathematics? Dec 19, 2022

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Justin Clarke-Doane is a professor of philosophy at Columbia University, where he works on the philosophy of mathematics, physics, and metaethics. After a long-anticipated catch-up on recent ice cream-related activities, Justin and Robinson discuss the question: What is mathematics?

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35 - Barry Lam: Philosophical Zombies, Resurrecting Cannibals, & Dating Vampires Dec 15, 2022

Show notes

Barry Lam is the host of Hi-Phi Nation, which is a much better podcast than this one, and which is devoted to exploring pressing philosophical questions through narrative. He did his graduate work at Princeton, then taught at Vassar, and will soon be picking up a new professorial post at UC Riverside. In this episode Robinson and Barry discuss the philosophical problems posed by certain monsters that were the subject of a three-part series in Hi-Phi Nation (namely zombies, cannibals, and vampires), along with David Lewis, the role of imagination in philosophy, and the risks of devoting time to public philosophy in an academic world that doesn’t prioritize it.

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34 - C Thi Nguyen: Agency, Aesthetics, & The Philosophy of Games Dec 12, 2022

Show notes

C Thi Nguyen is a professor in the philosophy department at the University of Utah. Before that, he did his graduate work at UCLA, where he was also a food writer with the LA Times. Robinson and Thi talk about his book, Games: Agency as Art, along with why we call things porn, autonomy and aesthetic judgment, and the difficult epistemic situation of having to select which experts to rely on in fields where we can’t make our own informed decisions.

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33 - Quayshawn Spencer: The Biology of Race, Natural Kinds, & Craniometry Dec 08, 2022

Show notes

Quayshawn Spencer is the Robert S. Blank Presidential Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. Before taking up his post in Philadelphia, he studied chemistry and philosophy at Cornell and then received his PhD in philosophy and a Masters in biology at Stanford. Quayshawn and Robinson discuss whether or not race in humans is a biological or social phenomenon, the extent and nature of Kant’s of racism, some of the difficulties of researching a sensitive topic in the public eye, and the basics of natural kinds. For more of Quayshawn’s work, you can check out his latest book, "What is Race? Four Philosophical Views.”

32 - Ray Briggs: Transfeminism, Philosophy of Sex, & Queer Science Fiction Dec 05, 2022

Show notes

Ray Briggs is a professor in the philosophy department at Stanford University. They did their doctoral work at MIT, and have since been working primarily in decision theory, epistemology, and metaphysics. In the last few years Ray has been writing and thinking about sex, gender, and transfeminism, which is what they and Robinson discuss in this episode, along with queer science fiction and thought experiments galore.

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