Twitter: @RobinsonErhardt (followed by 13 philosophers)
Site: linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt
65 episodes
2022 to present
Average episode: 94 minutes
Open in Apple Podcasts • RSS
Categories: Interview-Style
Podcaster's summary: 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. | | | https://linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt
| Episodes |
| 2023-Mar-20 • 85 minutes 65 - Tania Lombrozo: Explanation and Human Psychology Tania 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... |
| 2023-Mar-18 • 152 minutes 64 - Sarah Moss: Probabilistic Knowledge Sarah 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 ... |
| 2023-Mar-16 • 100 minutes 63 - Thomas Ryckman & Mark Wilson: The State of Analytic Philosophy Thomas 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 importa... |
| 2023-Mar-13 • 105 minutes 62 - David Papineau: Realism, Antirealism, and The Philosophy of Science 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. 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 wit... |
| 2023-Mar-11 • 130 minutes 61 - Keith Frankish: Illusionism and The Philosophy of Mind Keith 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 phenomena... |
| 2023-Mar-09 • 144 minutes 60 - Joel David Hamkins & Graham Priest: The Liar Paradox & The Set-Theoretic Multiverse 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 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 mathematic... |
| 2023-Mar-06 • 92 minutes 59 - Tamar Schapiro: Inclination, Will, and The Animal Self Tamar 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 though... |
| 2023-Mar-04 • 62 minutes 58 - Huw Price: Philosophy of Time, Boltzmann Brains, and Retrocausality Huw 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 ... |
| 2023-Mar-02 • 165 minutes 57 - Richard Kimberly Heck: Reference, Names, and the Philosophy of Language 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. 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, an... |
| 2023-Feb-27 • 78 minutes 56 - Kevin Heng: Exoplanetary Atmospheres and The Philosophy of Astrophysics Kevin Heng is Chair Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics of Extrasolar Planets at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. Before that, he was the director of the Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Robinson and Kevin discuss the search for planets outside our solar system and the importance of—as well as some problems surrounding—our investigations into their atmospheres, all before turning to his recent philosophical work. Kevin, along with three philosophers of... |
| 2023-Feb-25 • 61 minutes 55 - Alison Fernandes: Time Travel and Causation Alison 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 backwa... |
| 2023-Feb-24 • 90 minutes 54 - Luvell Anderson: Slurs, Hate Speech, and The Philosophy of Humor Luvell Anderson is a professor of philosophy at Syracuse University, where he’s also an affiliate faculty member of Women’s and Gender Studies and African American Studies. He is the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race and the soon-to-be-released Oxford Handbook of Applied Philosophy of Language. He is also currently working on a book about the philosophy of humor—The Ethics of Racial Humor—which is the topic of this episode. After beginning with a discussion of just what humor is... |
| 2023-Feb-21 • 78 minutes 53 - Christina Van Dyke: Medieval Bestiaries & The Philosophy of Food and Eating Christina Van Dyke is an emerita professor of philosophy at Calvin College and a visiting professor of philosophy at Barnard College, where she specializes in the medieval period. She is the author of A Hidden Wisdom: Medieval Contemplatives on Self-Knowledge, Reason, Love, Persons, and Immortality. Christina and Robinson discuss the philosophy of food and eating—its gendered aspects, its religious history, some ethical concerns, and eating disorders—before turning to animals in medieval philosophy, where t... |
| 2023-Feb-17 • 119 minutes 52 - Gabriel Greenberg: Semiotics, Representation, and Cognitive Science & Film Gabriel Greenberg is a professor of philosophy at the University of California Los Angeles, and currently a visiting professor at Stanford University. He works widely across the philosophy of mind, but in particular studies iconic representation, modality, and computation. Gabe and Robinson talk about the rough divide between representation and consciousness studies in the philosophy of mind before going into the distinction between signs and symbols, and how the brain interprets them. They finish with a de... |
| 2023-Feb-13 • 72 minutes 51 - Scott Shapiro: Hackers, Cybersecurity, and Legal Philosophy 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... |
| 2023-Feb-09 • 119 minutes 50 - Jonathan Schaffer: Monism, Grounding, and The Fundamental Level of Reality 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 t... |
| 2023-Feb-06 • 100 minutes 49 - Stephen Darwall: The History of Modern Ethics 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, Bentha... |
| 2023-Feb-02 • 84 minutes 48 - Patricia Churchland: Neurophilosophy, Free Will, & Consciousness 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:... |
| 2023-Jan-30 • 104 minutes 47: Achille Varzi: Metaphysics, Ontology, & Nominalism 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 tru... |
| 2023-Jan-26 • 120 minutes 46 - Tim Maudlin: Laws of Nature, Absolute Space, & Free Will 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... |
| 2023-Jan-23 • 107 minutes 45 - Jody Azzouni: Nominalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics 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 ontolog... |
| 2023-Jan-19 • 95 minutes 44 - Sophie Grace Chappell: Epiphanies, Ethics, and the Philosophy of Literature 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 aes... |
| 2023-Jan-16 • 91 minutes 43 - Eric Schwitzgebel: The Philosophical Weirdness of the World 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 Unite... |
| 2023-Jan-12 • 191 minutes 42 - Joel David Hamkins: Paradox, Infinity, & The Foundations of Mathematics 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 infin... |
| 2023-Jan-09 • 157 minutes 41 - Richard Kimberly Heck: Philosophy of Sex, Pornography, and Gender 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 firs... |
| 2023-Jan-05 • 81 minutes 40 - L.A. Paul: Cognitive Science, Metaphysics, & Transformative Experience 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... |
| 2023-Jan-02 • 142 minutes 39 - Peter Adamson: Islamic Philosophy, Mysticism, Dead Languages, & Eternity 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 | 04:4... |
| 2022-Dec-26 • 176 minutes 38 - Graham Priest: The Metaphysics of Nothingness 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 ... |
| 2022-Dec-22 • 88 minutes 37 - Paul B Woodruff: Philosophy and War 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 philosophi... |
| 2022-Dec-19 • 130 minutes 36 - Justin Clarke-Doane: What is Mathematics? 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? | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | Twitter: @robinsonerhardt | Twitch (Robinson Eats): @robinsonerhardt | YouTube (Robinson Eats): youtube.com/@robinsoneats |
| 2022-Dec-15 • 71 minutes 35 - Barry Lam: Philosophical Zombies, Resurrecting Cannibals, & Dating Vampires 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 wi... |
| 2022-Dec-12 • 75 minutes 34 - C Thi Nguyen: Agency, Aesthetics, & The Philosophy of Games 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. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | T... |
| 2022-Dec-08 • 81 minutes 33 - Quayshawn Spencer: The Biology of Race, Natural Kinds, & Craniometry 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, an... |
| 2022-Dec-05 • 65 minutes 32 - Ray Briggs: Transfeminism, Philosophy of Sex, & Queer Science Fiction 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. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | Twitch (Robinson Eats): @robinso... |
| 2022-Nov-28 • 69 minutes 31 - Haim Gaifman: Richard’s Paradox, Infinity, & Set Theory Haim Gaifman is a professor of philosophy at Columbia university in New York City. He is also a mathematician and probability theorist. In this episode (Haim’s fourth appearance), Robinson and Haim discuss the origins of set theory as the mathematical discipline developed to study the infinite, as well as its relation to Richard’s paradox. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | Twitch (Robinson Eats): @robinsonerhardt | YouTube (Robinson Eats): youtube.com/@robinsoneats |
| 2022-Nov-21 • 112 minutes 30 - David Albert: Foundations of Physics, Time’s Arrow, & Moral Expressivism David 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. David and Robinson talk about the relationship between ancient and contemporary physics, the continuum on which lie theoretical physics, the foundations of physics, the philosophy of physics, and metaphysics, scientific anti-realism, the direction of time, and how mora... |
| 2022-Nov-14 • 63 minutes 29 - Christopher Bobonich: Etymology, Classics, & Ancient Ethics Christopher Bobonich is the Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. After studying government at Harvard, he went on to do his graduate work at Cambridge and Berkeley. He now works broadly across value theory in ancient philosophy, though he is currently writing about knowledge and action in Plato. Among other things, Chris and Robinson talk about ancient and modern languages, etymology, the relevance of ancient ethics to contemporary life, and how well ancient conceptions of m... |
| 2022-Nov-07 • 68 minutes 28 - Nick C: Mystical Religious Experience & Moral Facts and Animal Suffering Nick is a software engineer at a biotech company. He studied politics, philosophy, and economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He and Robinson talk about the events that led him to abandon his deeply-held religious beliefs after a lifetime of Christianity. They also talk about moral facts, whether there are any, and whether their absence should play a role in Robinson deciding to shift toward being a vegetarian. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | Twitch: @robinsonerhardt | YouTu... |
| 2022-Oct-31 • 79 minutes 27 - Ronnie (Robinson's Dad): The Elgin Marbles Ronnie is Robinson’s father. They talk about the Elgin Marbles and also a little bit about ice cream and donuts. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | Twitch: @robinsonerhardt | |
| 2022-Oct-24 • 70 minutes 26 - Ezekiel Quittner-Strom: Perfect MCAT Scores & a Trader Joe’s Frozen Feast Ezekiel Quittner-Strom is a physician doing his residency in internal medicine at the University of Iowa. In this episode Robinson and Ezekiel eat a three-course feast of frozen food from Trader Joe’s and talk about it while they eat it, heated up and not frozen. Said talking concerned, in addition to said not-frozen frozen food, Ezekiel’s legendary perfect score on the MCAT and how he got it. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | Twitch: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Oct-17 • 71 minutes 25 - Ethan Hoppe: Medieval Music, Devil’s Interval, & Memorizing Game of Thrones Ethan Hoppe is a violinist and technical sergeant in the United States Air Force. He studied violin at Northwestern and Yale before the pandemic changed the trajectory of his career. We talk about the history of classical music, the power of listening to the same in an ancient world, memorizing the Game of Thrones theme song for a White House performance, and how visualization can be used as a tool to combat stage fright. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | Twitch: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Oct-13 • 95 minutes 24 - Caroline Hudson: Collagen Stimulation, Facial Plastic Surgery, Baked Goods Caroline Hudson is a facial plastic surgeon completing her fellowship in Palo Alto, California. She and Robinson discuss why an ENT (ear, nose, and throat specialist) would become a plastic surgeon, the fine (or illusory?) distinction between “meh” and “tasty,” forehead lowering surgery, the nuances of rhinoplasty, and everything you might want to know about stimulating collagen to improve the quality of your skin. They also talk about baked goods and eat them while they talk about them. | Instagram: @robin... |
| 2022-Oct-10 • 110 minutes 23 - David Albert & Justin Clarke-Doane: Absolute Space & Physicalism vs. Ethics David Albert and Justin Clarke-Doane are both professors of philosophy at Columbia University. While David is one of the world’s most respected philosophers of physics, Justin has staked his own claim as the authority on the intersection between mathematics and ethics. Though this episode was unfortunately plagued by some audio problems, it proved an exciting glimpse into a debate between two leading thinkers. Before a heated discussion concerning the nature of moral facts in a physical world, David, Justin... |
| 2022-Oct-06 • 70 minutes 22 - Graham Winn-Lee: Post-Apocalyptic Fantasies, Zombies, & Dragons Graham Winn-Lee is Robinson’s best friend. Though that is how he likes to introduce himself, Graham is also an artist, graphic designer, and crocheting enthusiast with a lifelong passion for competitive dog grooming. This episode is exclusively about Robinson and Graham's respective post-apocalyptic fantasies and related feelings about zombies, dragons, and other pertinent creatures. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | Twitch: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Oct-03 • 86 minutes 21 - Haim Gaifman: What is Philosophy? What is Mathematics? Haim Gaifman is a philosopher and mathematician. He teaches at Columbia University in New York City. In this episode Haim answers two questions of Robinson’s: What is philosophy? What is mathematics? | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | Twitch: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Sep-29 • 96 minutes 20 - Philip Guison: Ice Cream Novelties Philip studied neuroscience at the University of Michigan and is one of Robinson’s oldest friends. In this episode, Robinson forced Philip to eat ice cream novelties with him and talk about those novelties while eating them. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | Twitch: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Sep-26 • 76 minutes 19 - Nick Huggett: Paradoxes of Motion, Quantum Gravity, & String Theory Nick Huggett is a philosopher of physics and science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Before that, he studied physics and philosophy at Oxford and received his PhD at Rutgers. Despite not having taken a physics class since the eighth grade, this podcast marks the beginning of Robinson’s ambition to learn a bit more about the philosophy of physics. Nick and Robinson talk about Zeno of Elea’s paradoxes of motion and composition, as well as how they might be related to quantum gravity and string theor... |
| 2022-Sep-22 • 83 minutes 18 - Demitrios Haldes: Ice Cream Contrary to popular belief, Demitrios Haldes (@infinitemonkeybusiness) is neither the last scion of Herakles nor the superintendent of a crayon factory, but a comic illustrator and writer. He and Robinson eat ice cream and talk about it while they eat it. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt | Twitch: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Sep-19 • 110 minutes 17 - Richard Kimberly Heck: Monstrous Female Sexuality, Porn Villains, Anal Sex, & the Ethics of Fantasies 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 second conversation about pornography. The fir... |
| 2022-Sep-15 • 71 minutes 16 - Ezekiel Quittner-Strom: Instant Noodles & Internal Medicine Ezekiel Quittner-Strom is a physician doing his residency in internal medicine at the University of Iowa. In this episode Robinson and Ezekiel eat instant noodles and talk about them while they eat them. Said talking concerned, in addition to said noodles, ramen, instant versus restaurant ramen, and Robinson’s failure to follow directions, as well as significantly less important things like internal medicine and the healthcare industry. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt | TikTok: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Sep-12 • 72 minutes 15 - Caroline Hudson: Snack Cakes, Facelifts, Botox, & Wrinkle Prevention Caroline Hudson is a facial plastic surgeon completing her fellowship in Palo Alto, California. She and Robinson discuss *almost* all things facial, ranging from wrinkles and filler to sewing teeny tiny nerves back together. They get into the distinction between ease and simplicity in gauging surgeries, the future of facelifts, daily skincare routines, and, in a surprising twist, Caroline convinces Robinson to give Botox a try. They also talk about snack cakes (think Twinkies or Ding-Dongs) and eat them whi... |
| 2022-Sep-08 • 75 minutes 14 - Michael Harris: Number Theory, Creativity in Mathematics, & Beauty Michael Harris is a mathematician at Columbia University, where he primarily works on number theory. He did his undergraduate studies at Princeton and received his PhD from Harvard. Professor Harris and I discuss the tragic figure of Alexander Grothendieck, the allure of number theory, mathematics as an intrinsically human endeavor, creativity in mathematics, and the relationship between mathematicians and computers, including whether the former will ever replace the latter. | Instagram: @robinsonerh... |
| 2022-Sep-05 • 74 minutes 13 - Ethan Hoppe: Violin, Classical Music, & Stage Fright Ethan Hoppe is a violinist and technical sergeant in the United States Air Force. He studied violin at Northwestern and Yale before the pandemic changed the trajectory of his career. Robinson and Ethan talk about the life of a military violinist and then delve into more conceptual matters, such as how a musician’s focuses change as they mature, viewing classical pieces as poems, training for blind auditions, and dealing with stage fright. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Sep-01 • 72 minutes 12 - Philip Guison: Chicago Bakeries & Baked Goods Philip studied neuroscience at the University of Michigan and is one of Robinson’s oldest friends. One time in high school he gave a presentation for French class in which he sat there without speaking for ten minutes while everyone stared in awe, and for that he is a hero. As part of Philip’s sacrifice for this episode, he and Robinson traveled throughout Chicago in search of tasty baked goods, which they subsequently ate and talked about while eating. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Aug-29 • 68 minutes 11 - Haim Gaifman: Alice in Wonderland & Paradoxes Haim Gaifman is a philosopher and mathematician. He teaches at Columbia University in New York City. Haim and Robinson talk about Alice in Wonderland, Bertrand Russell, and paradoxes. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Aug-25 • 76 minutes 10 - Demitrios Haldes: Cookies Contrary to popular belief, Demitrios Haldes (@infinitemonkeybusiness) is neither a male supermodel nor a basketball player in the Moldovian professional circuit, but a comic illustrator and writer. He and Robinson eat cookies and talk about them while they eat them. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Aug-22 • 83 minutes 9 - Patrick Davis: Steroids, PEDs, & Bodybuilding Patrick Davis (@theillestpd) is a stupidly yoked unit of a bodybuilder training and coaching out of Austin, Texas. Among other things, he and Robinson talk about Patrick’s journey from military school to bodybuilding, his experience with performance-enhancing drugs, and how to best make use of partial reps. | Note One: This episode contains an extensive discussion of performance-enhancing drugs, some of which are illegal. This cannot be construed as an endorsement of PEDs. Any decision regarding the use of ... |
| 2022-Aug-18 • 65 minutes 8 - Ezekiel Quittner-Strom: Sushi Ezekiel Quittner-Strom is a physician doing his residency in internal medicine at the University of Iowa. He and Robinson talk about sushi and almost nothing else. | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Aug-15 • 125 minutes 7 - Justin Clarke-Doane: Philosophy of Mathematics, Metaethics, & Ice Cream Justin Clarke-Doane is a professor of philosophy at Columbia University, where he works on the philosophy of mathematics, physics, and metaethics. He and Robinson discuss ice cream and Justin’s fantastic hair, along with less important topics, like philosophy and mathematics. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Aug-11 • 67 minutes 6 - Uncle Perry: Ice Cream Uncle Perry is Robinson’s uncle. They eat ice cream and talk about it while they eat it. | | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Aug-08 • 82 minutes 5 - Richard Kimberly Heck: Philosophy of Pornography, Aesthetics, & Feminism 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. Among other topics, Robinson and Riki discuss this transition, along with ... |
| 2022-Aug-04 • 80 minutes 4 - Abigail Biddle: Bodybuilding, Boulder Shoulders, & Air Fryer Hacks Abigail Biddle is a bodybuilder and law student at Duke University. She and Robinson talk about the trials and tribulations of dieting, weightlifting qua treatment modality for sexual assault survivors, how Abigail got boulder shoulders, the dangers of eating Taco Bell before a cross-country flight, and air fryer hacks. | | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Aug-01 • 70 minutes 3 - Ronnie (Robinson's Dad): Collecting & Ketchup Ronnie is Robinson’s father. They talk about ketchup and how collecting creates order in a chaotic life. | | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Jul-30 • 65 minutes 2 - Ethan Hoppe: Air Force Boot Camp & the Violin Ethan Hoppe is a violinist and technical sergeant in the United States Air Force. He studied violin at Northwestern and Yale before the pandemic changed the trajectory of his career. Robinson and Ethan talk about the surprising experience that was air force boot camp, and how different it was from the hardcore fitness retreat they had both naively expected it to be. | | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt |
| 2022-Jul-26 • 85 minutes 1 - Haim Gaifman: Vagueness & the Sorites Paradox Haim Gaifman is a philosopher and mathematician. He teaches at Columbia University in New York City. Robinson and Haim talk about vagueness, a branch of philosophy that deals with borderline phenomena like heaps and baldness. (Note that this interview was conducted in May of 2022, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which is used as an example in the discussion.) | | Instagram: @robinsonerhardt |