Degrees Held
- Philosophy Honours, UKZN, 2006
- Philosophy Masters, UKZN, 2008
- Philosophy PhD, UKZN, 2016
Research Interest
- Philosophy of Language: Realism/anti-realism debate construed as semantic theories, theories on truth and meaning,
- Epistemology: Epistemic and semantic distinctions as the chief focus of the debate between logical positivist and naturalist empiricist philosophers – historical to current, Carnap and Quine and philosophy in the wake of their departure from each other
- Naturalism and its theoretical underpinnings, strengths and weaknesses; the role of empirical revision as a demarcation criterion for analytic and synthetic truth in the work of Quine and other Naturalistic philosophers
- Logical positivism from late Carnap to current – especially as reviewed recently by Michael Friedman
Teaching Interest
- Philosophy of Language: Dummettian anti-realism in semantics and anti-realism as the foundations of metaphysics
- Philosophy of Science: The philosophical method and critical reflections on science, realism and anti-realism in science
- Epistemology: Logical positivism and Naturalism – two forms of philosophical empiricism, analytic-synthetic distinction, a priori-a posteriori distinction
- Political philosophy: Marxism, theories of justice, social contract theory
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Journal Articles
Robinson, C. Knowing Linguistic Conventions, South African Journal of Philosophy 2014, 33(2): 167–176.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02580136.2014.923692
Robinson, C. Naturalism’s maxims and its methods. Is naturalistic philosophy like science? Principia, Vol. 22, no. 3, 2018 (pp. 371 – 391).
Community Involvement
Teaching Expertise
Teaching Expertise
- History of Western Philosophy
- Epistemology: Empiricism-rationalism, realism, relativism and constructivism in theories of knowledge
- David Hume: Treatise of Human Understanding
- Immanuel Kant: Epistemic and semantic distinctions, the synthetic a priori and other categories of understanding
- Modern Philosophy: Descartes to Marx, and the influence of science on philosophy over this period
- Political philosophy: Locke’s liberalism and modern critiques of liberalism, individualism and democracy, Marxism, theories of justice
- Meta-ethics: Expressivism and other forms of moral anti-realism
- Critical reasoning