His contributions to philosophy include a defense of sense-datum theories of perception and a variety of arguments against physicalism about the mind.
He published an alternative version of the popular Knowledge Argument in his book Matter and Sense independently and in the same year as Frank Jackson, but Robinson's thought experiment involves sounds rather than colors.
After four years at Oriel College, Oxford as full-time stipendiary lecturer in philosophy (1970–1974), he took up a lectureship at the University of Liverpool.
He stayed at Liverpool for twenty-six years, becoming first Senior Lecturer then reader, apart from a period as Soros Professor of Philosophy at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary (1994–1996).
Robinson advocated philosophical dualism in his book From the Knowledge Argument to Mental Substance: Resurrecting the Mind, published in 2016.