Robin Martinot
I am currently a scientific staff member at Ruhr University Bochum, as a member of Heinrich Wansing's ERC Advanced Grant project Contradictory Logics: A Radical Challenge to Logical Orthodoxy.
I defended my PhD Formalizing Ideals of Proof: Purity, Explanation and Semantic Pollution in June 2025. It was hosted by the Department of Theoretical Philosophy of Utrecht University, as part of the NWO-funded Vici project "Optimal Proofs" led by Rosalie Iemhoff, and co-supervised by Luca Incurvati (ILLC).
I am interested in the philosophy of logic and mathematics (ideals of proof, foundations of mathematics, structuralism, pluralism), proof theory (proof translations, generalizations of the sequent calculus, proof-theoretic semantics), and using formal methods to make intuitive concepts precise.
Before this, I completed the Master of Logic and a bachelor's in neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam.
Publications
Talks
Teaching
Additional activities
Formalizing Ideals of Proof: Purity, Explanation and Semantic Pollution (2025, Dissertation).
Purity and Explanation: A Systematic Case Study (co-authored with Francesca Poggiolesi). Synthese 205.6 (2025): 243.
Ontological Purity for Formal Proofs. The Review of Symbolic Logic 17.2 (2024): 395-434.
Towards A Formal Analysis of Semantic Pollution. LOGICA Yearbook 2022 (pp.79-98).
Works in progress
A Formal Characterization of Semantic Pollution of Modal Proof Systems. Submitted October 2024.
Master's thesis
Sets and Categories: What Foundational Approaches Tell Us About Mathematical Thought (ILLC, 2019).
Some invited talks:
2025 - Semantic pollution, bilateralism and negation
TULIP Day, Utrecht University
2025 - Formalizing philosophical ideals of proof
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Colloquium, University of Tübingen
2024 - How proof systems model philosophical properties of mathematical proofs: a case study
Conference on Explanations, Norms and Insights for the Governance of Machine Agents (ENIGMA 2024), University of Luxembourg
2024 - On semantic syntax in proof systems
EuPhilo Conference 2024 (“Logic, Reasoning, and AI”), Utrecht University
2024 - Semantic Pollution and the Meaning of Connectives
Workshop: Proofs, Rules, and Meanings, University of St Andrews
2023 - Purity and Explanatoriness of Proof
Logic: Norms and Forms, Utrecht University
2023 - Preserving and Extending Purity for Formal Proofs
Perspectives on Logic and Philosophy, Ruhr University Bochum
2022 - Semantic Pollution of Proof Systems
Workshop on Proofs and Formalization in Logic, Mathematics and Philosophy, Utrecht University
I was a teaching assistant for:
2023 - Foundations and Philosophy of Mathematics (Master’s programme AI, Utrecht University)
2022 - Logic for Philosophers (Bachelor’s programme Philosophy, Utrecht University)
2021 - Philosophy for AI (Bachelor’s programme AI, Utrecht University)
2021 - ‘Matching activity’ for prospective Bachelor’s AI students (Utrecht University)
2020 - Modal Logic for AI (Bachelor’s programme AI, Utrecht University)
From January 2022-2025, I was communications officer for the Dutch Association for Logic (Vereniging voor Logica, VvL). This involved updating the website, maintaining the members list, creating newsletters for the association, and contributing to the organization of events.
I was a co-organizer of several workshops:
- The first edition of the Dutch Logic PhD Day, Utrecht University (2022)
- The 4th Proof Society Workshop and International Autumn School, Utrecht University (2022)
- Workshop on Proof and Formalization in Logic, Mathematics and Philosophy 2022, Utrecht University
- Computability in Europe 2024 (University of Amsterdam)
You can e-mail me via [Robin.Martinot at ruhr-uni-bochum dot de] or [hello at robinmartinot dot nl]
