Robinson's Podcast

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...

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...

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 Twitc...

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 p...

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 l...

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...

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

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. Ins...

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 too...

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 qua...

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 lead...

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: @r...

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

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

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...

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

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 t...

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 intern...

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 convince...

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 mathemati...

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...

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, w...

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

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

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, som...