Robinson's Podcast

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 of the differences between religious and scientific explanations, and how we reason about morally charged situations. Keep up with Tania’s work through:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaniaLombrozo

Tania’s Website: https://psych.princeton.edu/people/tania-lombrozo

The Concepts & Cognition Lab: https://cognition.princeton.edu

OUTLINE:

00:00 Introduction

2:23 From Philosophy to Psychology

8:03:39 Tania’s Interest in Learning and Explanation

11:28 Experiments to Test Our Intuitions About Explanation

16:16 Our Intuitions About What Makes a Good Explanation

27:06 Explanation-Based Processes

29:30 What Demands Explanation?

38:33 Religious and Scientific Explanation?

40:51 What Makes a Good Answer?

43:59 Marr’s Levels of Explanation

48:36 Tania’s Work with Neuroscientists

54:05 More on Explanations in Science and Religion

1:00:58 Moral Reasoning and Explanation

1:07:28 Can Science Explain the Human Mind?

1:12:57 Philosophy and Psychology

1:16:39 Psychology in Tania’s Life

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.

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 have significant consequences for social and political questions concerning racial profiling, statistical evidence, and legal standards of proof,” all of which are discussed in this episode. Robinson and Sarah begin by introducing the concept of probabilistic belief before turning to Sarah’s argument in favor of probabilistic knowledge. They then turn to some applications of her work to outstanding puzzles in philosophy and law. Keep up with Sarah on her website, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ssmoss/, and check out Probabilistic Knowledge on Amazon, https://a.co/d/iobL8iZ.

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

OUTLINE:

00:00 Introduction

3:58 Math and Epistemology

7:35 What is Probabilistic Belief?

11:22 Sarah, David Lewis, and Robert Stalnaker

28:26 Credence and Probabilistic Belief

33:40 Are All Beliefs Probabilistic?

56:57 Probabilistic Knowledge and Racial Profiling

1:20:25 Probabilistic Knowledge and Transformative Experience

1:29:30 Statistical Evidence and Legal Proof

1:48:39 Pragmatic Encroachment on Legal Proceedings

2:04:07 Is Belief a Strong or a Weak Attitude?

2:12:39 The Preface Paradox

2:21:06 Probabilistic Knowledge and the Newcomb Problem

2:27:18 Probabilistic Knowledge and the Philosophy of Action

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.

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 important ideas of the twentieth century that have been forgotten.

OUTLINE:

00:00 Introduction

2:07 Tom and Mark’s Friendship

9:46 Problems with Contemporary Analytic Philosophy

15:18 Hertz and a Metaphysical Notion of Force

18:04 Thoughts on Wittgenstein

20:40 Mark and the French Structuralists

29:41 The Single Greatest Problem Confronting Analytic Philosophy Today

37:45 Some Thoughts on Grounding

1:02:40 Mach, Duhem, Hertz, and Analytic Philosophy

1:14:26 A Historical Overemphasis on Logic

1:29:54 Final Thoughts on the Current State of Academic Philosophy

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.

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 with an introduction to the statistical theory of causation. For some background information, listen to David’s episode of Philosophy Bites on scientific realism. The painting used in the “album art” comes by way of David’s daughter, Katy Papineau. See her website for more information. David’s most recent book is the Metaphysics of Sensory Experience (OUP 2021), a discussion of which will have to wait for another episode. You can keep up with David on his website, https://www.davidpapineau.co.uk, or via Twitter, @davidpapineau.

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

OUTLINE:

00:00 In This Episode…

00:38 Introduction

4:51 David and the Philosophy of Science

10:32 The Philosopher’s Role in Science

25:07 Scientific Realism and Anti-Realism

47:11 On Pessimistic Meta-Induction From Past Falsity

55:27 On The Replication Crisis in Science

1:15:21 The Statistical Theory of Causation

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.

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 phenomenal consciousness is an illusion. Robinson and Keith discuss a variety of aspects of illusionism, including just what it is—and isn’t—its relationship to free will, and how the thesis engages with academic literature outside of philosophy (please see http://nivea.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/#CB for Kevin O’Regan’s demonstrations of change blindness, which are referenced in the conversation). You can keep up with Keith and his work on his website, Keithfrankish.com, or through his Twitter account, @keithfrankish. He is also, along with Philip Goff, the host of the podcast MindChat, which you can find at https://www.youtube.com/@MindChat/.

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

OUTLINE:

00:00 In This Episode…

00:43 Introduction

5:42 What Is the Hard Problem of Consciousness?

16:40 Tactics for Accounting for Anomalous Phenomena

22:14 An Illusionism Primer

42:13 Eliminative Materialism and Illusionism

45:18 Reading the Scientific Literature

59:19 Observing Other Minds

1:14:37 Is Free Will an Illusion?

1:23:18 Cognitive Science and Illusionism

1:55:34 A Thought Experiment Concerning Anesthesia

2:02:46 A Poetry Reading

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.

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 mathematics (his doctorate is in mathematics from the London School of Economics) to logic and eastern philosophy. Robinson, Graham, and Joel discuss two topics—the liar paradox and the set-theoretic multiverse. More particularly, they address how solutions to the former revolve around questions of logical pluralism (is there more than one “correct” logic, and if so, how should we determine which to use in any given situation?), and regarding the latter, they address the metaphysics of the multiverse, how the multiverse theory squares with its monist alternative, and how it relates to the age-old question: Is mathematics created or discovered? Some resources for background information are included below. Check out Joel’s current project, The Book of Infinity, 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. You can keep up with Graham and his ever-growing, immense body of work through his website.

Graham’s Website: https://grahampriest.net

Joel’s Blog: http://jdh.hamkins.org

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

Joel's Substack: https://joeldavidhamkins.substack.com

Joel's Twitter: https://twitter.com/JDHamkins

Background:

The Liar Paradox on the SEP: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liar-paradox/

Set Theory on the SEP: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/set-theory/

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

OUTLINE:

00:00 In This Episode…

1:12 Introduction

11:16 Graham’s History with the Liar Paradox

12:51 An Explication of the Liar

15:03 Paraconsistent Logic and the Liar

32:32 A Deflationary Account of Truth and the Liar

34:51 Joel’s Approach to the Liar

38:37 Hartry Field and the Liar

41:18 The Yablo Paradox

48:22 When to Change the Logic

56:24 A Difference in Opinion on Logic?

1:01:44 The Set-Theoretic Multiverse

1:14:43 Monism and Pluralism About the Set-Theoretic Universe

1:35:35 Philosophical Answers to Mathematical Questions

1:39:16 On Woodin’s Program

1:46:12 Logical Pluralism and the Set-Theoretic Multiverse

1:58:13 The Metaphysics of the Set-Theoretic Multiverse

2:09:42 Is Mathematics Created or Discovered?

2:16:59 The Continuity From Ancient To Contemporary Mathematics

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.

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 thoughts on free will, topics in the history of ethics, and why she teaches Ayn Rand’s philosophy to undergraduates. You can keep up with Tamar and her work through her PhilPeople page, at https://philpeople.org/profiles/tamar-schapiro.

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

OUTLINE

00:00 Introduction

4:44 Tamar’s Interest in Ethics

9:35 Teaching Ethics at MIT

11:40 On Inclination and Will

18:10 Distinguishing Inclination and Will

21:23 The Moment of Drama

26:27 Rationalism and Intellectualism

29:56 Tamar’s Theory

36:58 Kant and the Animal Self

38:33 Freud and Analytic Philosophy

40:36 A Normative Component to Tamar’s Theory

53:54 Kant’s Kingdom of Ends

56:53 Kant on Free Will

1:00:50 Rationalism and Sentimentalism

1:07:16 Hobbes on Moral Obligation

1:12:02 On Richard Price

1:15:04 Jeremy Benthem on Utilitarianism

1:20:44 Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism

1:23:44 The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

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.

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 of time, ranging from its flow and direction to its relationship to causation and quantum mechanics. Huw is also the author of Naturalism Without Mirrors and Time’s Arrow and Archimedes’ Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time. You can keep up with Huw on his website, prce.hu, and via his Twitter account, @HuwPriceAU.

OUTLINE

00:00 Introduction

2:22 Huw's Background

4:23 The A- and B-Series of Time

12:57 The Flow of Time

25:49 Boltzmann Brains

33:30 The Arrow of Time

38:23 The Fixed Past and The Open Future

50:31 Quantum Mechanics and Retrocausality

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.

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, and more particularly the reference relation. They pick up with Frege and travel up through Russell, Carnap, Strawson, Kripke, and Lewis, up to the present, covering a range of topics including Fregean senses, the descriptive theory of names, ordinary language philosophy, natural kinds, possible worlds, externalism, and more.

Check out http://robinsonerhardt.com and stay up to date!

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

00:37 The Importance of Names

9:59 Recent Shifts in Philosophy of Language

12:44 Riki’s Interest in Frege

17:35 Who Was Frege?

30:05 Uber Sinn und Bedeutung

48:33 Knowledge by Description and Acquaintance

55:06: The True and The False

1:00:41 Bertrand Russell On Denoting

1:17:50 Distinguishing Representations

1:20:54 P.F. Strawson and Ordinary Language Philosophy

1:31:43 Carnap on Meaning and Necessity

1:34:52 Kripke and Lewis on Naming and Possible Worlds

1:55:19 Current Work on Naming

2:02:15 Experimental Philosophy of Language

2:12:20 On Twin Earth

2:19:31 A Digression on Philosophical Practice

2:25:14 Ty Burge and Natural Kinds

2:27:55 Referential Vagueness

2:33:08 Internalism and Externalism

2:38:40 Sense, Reference, and Sex

2:41:16 Sense, Reference, and The Begriffsschrift

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.

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 science—Vera Matarese, Siska de Baerdemaeker, and Nora Boyd—are the editors of an upcoming anthology on the philosophy of astrophysics, for which Kevin composed an essay on the role of models in astrophysics. Kevin is also the author of Exoplanetary Atmospheres: Theoretical Concepts and Foundations, which is part of the Princeton Series in Atmospheres.

Check out http://robinsonerhardt.com and stay up to date!

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

00:29 Introduction

3:37 Kevin’s Background in Astrophysics

6:53 How Do Astrophysicists Work?

12:34 An Astrophysicist’s Tools in the Search for Exoplanets

22:06 False Color Images in Astrophysics

27:12 More Methods of Atmospheric Analysis

30:42 Kevin’s Research

43:13 The Philosophy of Astrophysics Anthology

47:03 Philosophy and Scientific Models

1:04:19 An Unsolved Problem Concerning Turbulence

1:08:01 Kevin’s Time in Culinary School

1:11:57 Fashion and Bottega Veneta

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.