What value might there be in having fewer rules? In episode 129 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk to philosopher and host of Hi-Phi Nation Barry Lam about his book, Fewer Rules, Better People: The Case for Discretion. They discuss the problems with legalism and bureaucracy and the importance of discretion, as well as how the emergence of AI affects decision-making, and the negative impact of too many rules on our criminal justice system. Are we obliged to follow government rulings? Why is the ‘by the book bureaucrat’ the biggest villain of all? And how can we train people to make better discretionary decisions? In the bonus, your hosts consider the effects of decisions based on private morality and whether there are cultural differences in discretion.

Works Discussed:

Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously
Barry Lam,  Fewer Rules, Better People: The Case for Discretion
Plato, Crito

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Episode 128 – Cleanliness

How often should you shower to remain ‘clean’? How many times can you re-wear your jeans before they are considered ‘dirty’? In episode 128 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a look at cleanliness. They get into how humans have turned cleanliness into an art, and maybe even an obsession. Why are we so bothered by dirt? What is dirt, anyways? How are notions of dirtiness and cleanliness even into our symbolic systems, including language and religion? And what is up with TikTok’s obsession with the Clean Girl Aesthetic? As they tackle these questions, your hosts also explore the historical weaponisation of the concept of cleanliness against marginalised groups, such as queer people and people of color. In the bonus, Ellie and David discuss cleanliness as a social construct, the link between it and isolation, and Michel Serres’s ‘excremental theory’ of private property.

Works Discussed:
Bruce Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance
Dana Berthold, “Tidy Whiteness: A Genealogy of Race, Purity, and Hygiene”
L’Oreal Blackett, “In The “Hygiene Olympics” Black Folks Always Win — But Aren’t We Tired?”
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger
Virginia Smith, Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity

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Is Trump’s presidential reign turning the US into an oligarchy? Or did the US fall into oligarchic rule many years ago? In episode 127 of Overthink, David and Ellie dive into what an oligarchy looks like, the dangers of a country’s power being in the hands of the wealthy few, and whether or not oligarchic rule is new for the US. They look to the ancient Greeks for ideas on which form of government is conducive to the good life and explore how Aristotle’s notion of pleonexia relates to the current state of the US. Your hosts investigate how oligarchy morphs into tyranny, and try to answer the question, “How can we resist an oligarchy?” In the bonus, Ellie and David look at the four different types of oligarchy discussed by Jeffrey Winters.

Works Discussed:

Aristotle, Politics

Gordon Arlen, “Aristotle and the problem of oligarchic harm: Insights for democracy”

Thom Hartmann, The Hidden History of American Oligarchy

Plato, Republic

Luke Winslow, Oligarchy in America

Jeffrey Winters, Oligarchy

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Lasers, fog machines, silent prayers…and don’t forget the ecstasy! In episode 126 of Overthink, Ellie and David dive into the experience of ecstasy. They look at interpretations of ecstasy in the tradition of mysticism, where ecstasy has been figured as a loss of self. How common are experiences of ecstasy? Are they limited to religious contexts, or are there alternate avenues for entering ecstatic states? And what about MDMA and its relation to rave culture? In the bonus, they explore how well ecstasy fits into William James’ framework for mystical states, and consider the relationship between ecstasy, reason, and age.

Works Discussed:
St. Teresa of Avila, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus
Simon Critchley, On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy
James Landau, “The Flesh of Raving”
Marghanita Laski, Everyday Ecstasy
Wilhelm Mayer-Gross, “The Phenomenology of Abnormal Emotions of Happiness”
Simon Reynolds, Generation Ecstasy
Summer Heights High (2007)

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How should we make sense of the Trump administration’s assault on Trans rights? In episode 125 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk to philosopher Talia Mae Bettcher about her new book Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy, where she discusses everything from “genderphoria” to her notion of “reality enforcement” (a mechanism of transphobic oppression). In the interview, Dr. Bettcher expresses concerns about certain received views about trans identity, such as the “the wrong body” and “beyond the binary” views, which don’t capture the complexity of trans experiences. How can we move toward a more inclusive culture when it comes to trans identity? And, do we need to reject fundamental philosophical notions such as “person,” “self,” and “subject” in order to understand trans phoria? In the bonus, Ellie and David dive deeper into the idea of the interpersonal object and question whether or not the notion of the self is too far plagued by philosophical baggage and needs to be discarded.

Works Discussed:

Talia Mae Bettcher, Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy

Talia Mae Bettcher, “Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion”

Jennifer Finney Boylan, “I’m a Transgender Woman. This Is Not the Metamorphosis I Was Expecting”

Dean Spade, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law

Perry Zurn, Andrea J. Pitts, Talia Mae Bettcher and PJ DiPietro, Trans Philosophy

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Our intuitions are never wrong… right? In episode 124 of Overthink, Ellie and David wonder what intuition actually is. Is it a gut feeling, a rational insight, or just a generalization from past experience? They talk about the role intuition has played in early modern philosophy (in the works of Descartes, Hume, and Mill), in phenomenology (in the philosophies of Husserl and Nishida), and in the philosophy of science (in the writings of Bachelard). They also call into question the use of intuitions in contemporary analytic philosophy while also highlighting analytic critiques of the use of intuition in philosophical discourse. So, the question is: Can we trust our intuitions or not? Are they reliable sources of knowledge, or do they just reveal our implicit biases and cultural stereotypes? Plus, in the bonus, they dive into the limits of intuition. They take a look at John Stuart Mill’s rebellion against intuition, the ableism involved in many analytic intuitions, and Foucault’s concept of historical epistemes.

Works Discussed:

Maria Rosa Antognazza and Marco Segala, “Intuition in the history of philosophy (what’s in it for philosophers today?)”
Gaston Bachelard, Rational Materialism
Gaston Bachelard, The Philosophy of No
Gaston Bachelard, The Rationalist Compromise
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
Moti Mizrahi, “Your Appeals to Intuition Have No Power Here!”
Nishida Kitaro, Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness

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It’s not you, it’s me… In episode 123 of Overthink, Ellie and David get into the highs and lows of breakups. What, if anything, is valuable about breakups? Does society’s emphasis on monogamy affect how we conceptualize the end of relationships? And what do you do if your ex still has your Netflix password? Your hosts discuss everything from breakups in the age of social media and chemical solutions to heartache to what the laws against domestic abuse and stalking can tell us about how society views breakups. Plus, in the bonus, they take a look at Kierkegaard’s love life and discuss whether it’s ever truly possible to breakup with someone for purely altruistic reasons.

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed:

Brian D Earp et. al, “If I Could Just Stop Loving You: Anti-Love Biotechnology and the Ethics of a Chemical Breakup”

Kelli María Korducki, Hard To Do: The Surprising, Feminist History of Breaking Up

Pilar Lopez-Cantero, “The Break-Up Check: Exploring Romantic Love through Relationship Terminations”

Ovid, Remedia Amoris

Deborah Tuerkheimer, “Breakups”

Jennifer Wilson, “The New Business of Breakups”

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You might want to jot down some notes on this one! In episode 122, Ellie and David explore where writing began, the value of writing, and our reasons for writing. Is the widespread use of generative AI technologies, such as ChatGPT, a threat to creative and academic writing? How did writing originate in cuneiform, and how does Derrida's deconstruction of logocentrism encourage us to reconsider the privileging of speech over writing? Listen to it all write here, write now! Plus, in the bonus, they get into some of our most pernicious myths and misconceptions about writing. They talk about the tortured writer trope, the solitary nature of writing, and the connection of writing to class.

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed:
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous
Geoffrey Bennington and Jacques Derrida, Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing”
Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology
Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context”
Jacques Derrida, Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences
Joan Didion, “Why I write”
Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy
George Orwell, “Why I write”
Plato, The Phaedrus
Alva Noë, The Entanglement, How Art and Philosophy Make Us Who We Are
Peter Salmon, An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida
Andrew Robinson, The Story of Writing

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