In episode 102 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss diverse ideas of racial mixedness, from family-oriented models of mixed race to José Vasconcelos’ and Gloria Anzaldua’s idea of the ‘mestizo’ heritage of Mexican people. They work through phenomenological accounts of cultural hybridity and selfhood, wondering how being multiracial pushes beyond the traditional Cartesian philosophical subject. Is mestizaje or mixed-race an identity in its own right? What are its connections to the history of colonialism and contemporary demographic trends? And, how can different relations to a mixed heritage lead to flourishing outside of white supremacist categories?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

 Works Discussed

Linda Martín Alcoff, Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera Rosie Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory Elisa Lipsky-Karasz, “Naomi Osaka on Fighting for No. 1 at the U.S. Open”Mariana Ortega, In-Between: Latina Feminist Phenomenology, Multiplicity, and the Self

Naomi Osaka, “Naomi Osaka reflects on challenges of being black and Japanese”

Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude Adrian Piper, “Passing for White, Passing for Black” Carlin Romano, “A Challenge for Philosophy”

José Vasconcelos, La Raza Cósmica Naomi Zack, Race and Mixed Race

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Welcome your robot overlords! In episode 101 of Overthink, Ellie and David speak with Dr. Shazeda Ahmed, specialist in AI Safety, to dive into the philosophy guiding artificial intelligence. With the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT, the lofty utilitarian principles of Effective Altruism have taken the tech-world spotlight by storm. Many who work on AI safety and ethics worry about the dangers of AI, from how automation might put entire categories of workers out of a job to how future forms of AI might pose a catastrophic “existential risk” for humanity as a whole. And yet, optimistic CEOs portray AI as the beginning of an easy, technology-assisted utopia. Who is right about AI: the doomers or the utopians? And whose voices are part of the conversation in the first place? Is AI risk talk spearheaded by well-meaning experts or investor billionaires? And, can philosophy guide discussions about AI toward the right thing to do?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Nick Bostrom, SuperintelligenceAdrian Daub, What Tech Calls ThinkingVirginia Eubanks, Automating InequalityMollie Gleiberman, “Effective Altruism and the strategic ambiguity of ‘doing good’”Matthew Jones and Chris Wiggins, How Data HappenedWilliam MacAskill, What We Owe the FutureToby Ord, The PrecipiceInioluwa Deborah Raji et al., “The Fallacy of AI Functionality”Inioluwa Deborah Raji and Roel Dobbe, “Concrete Problems in AI Safety, Revisted”Peter Singer, Animal LiberationAmia Srinivisan, “Stop The Robot Apocalypse”

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Overthink goes meta! In the 100th episode Ellie and David reflect on the podcast’s journey and the origins of its (flawless!) title. They take up the question, “What is overthinking?” Is it a kind of fixation on details or an unwanted split in the normal flow of ideas? Then, they turn to psychology to make sense of overthinking’s highs and lows, as the distracting voice inside your head and a welcome relief from traumatic memories. Through the philosophies of John Dewey and the Frankfurt School, they look at different ways to understand the role of overthinking in philosophy and the humanities. Is overthinking a damper on good decisions, or perhaps the path to preserving the possibility of social critique?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed

John Dewey, How We ThinkMax Horkheimer, “The Social Function of Philosophy”Herbert Marcuse, “Remarks on a Redefinition of Culture”Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, “Responses to depression and their effects on the duration of depressive episodes”Charles Orbendorf, “Co-Conscious Mentation”Suzanne Segerstrom et al., “A multidimensional structure for repetitive thought”Stephanie Wong et al., “Rumination as a Transdiagnostic Phenomenon in the 21st Century”

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Who’s afraid of zombification? Apparently not analytic philosophers. In episode 99 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk all about zombies and their unfortunate legacy in the thought experiments of academic philosophy. Their portrait as brain-eating and consciousness-lacking mobs is a far cry from their origins in the syncretic sorcery at the margins of Haitian Voodoo. This distance means that the uncanny zombie raises provocative questions about the problematic ways philosophy integrates and appropriates nonwestern culture into its canon. Your hosts probe beyond limits of the tradition when they explore zombification in animals, in reading, in Derrida, and beyond.

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed

Ellie Anderson, “Derrida and the Zombie”David J. Chalmers, The Conscious MindWade Davis, The Serpent and the RainbowDescartes, MeditationsLeslie Desmangles, The Faces of the GodsDaniel C. Dennett, "The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies" & Consciousness ExplainedZora Neale Hurston, Tell my HorseEdgar Allan Poe, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”Justin Smith-Ruiu, “The World as a Game” 

The Last of Us (2023)Night of the Living Dead (1968)Get Out (2017)

Overthink, Continental Philosophy: What is it, and why is it a thing?

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They say this one is the real deal. In Episode 98 of Overthink, Ellie and David untangle the philosophy behind the way we compare, judge, and defend our reputations. From Machiavelli’s advice to despots looking to stay popular, to disgruntled students venting on their professors online, reputation can glide you to victory or trigger your fall from grace. Exploring concepts like the Matthew effect, the homo comparativus, and informational asymmetry, your hosts ask: Why do both Joan Jett and Jean-Jacques Rousseau refuse reputation’s fickle pleasures? Does David actually have a good work-life balance, or is everyone else hoodwinked? And, what is the place of quantified reputation in an increasingly digital world?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed

Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Honor Code

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Bad Reputation

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Louise Matsakis, “How the West Got China’s Social Credit System Wrong,” Wired Magazine

Gloria Origgi, Reputation: What It Is and Why It Matters

Gloria Origgi, "Reputation in Moral Philosophy and Epistemology"

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Reveries of the Solitary Walker

Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Jordi Xifra, “Recognition, symbolic capital and reputation in the seventeenth century”

Overthink Episodes

Ep 28, Cancel Culture

Ep 19, Genius

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The village is aglow! In episode 97 of Overthink, Ellie and David guide you through the ideas that make a metropolis tick. From Plato’s spotless Republic to Saudi Arabia’s futuristic The Line, they talk the foul and the vibrant of what it means to live in a city. Why are there so few public plazas in Brasilia? Why did David lose his wallet in Mexico City? How do gridded street layouts reflect colonial fantasies? And how did a medieval woman writer, Christine de Pizan, beat Greta Gerwig to the punch in imagining a Barbie-like City of Ladies?Check out the episode's extended cut here!Works DiscussedMarshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into AirDon T. Deere, “Coloniality and Disciplinary Power: On Spatial Techniques of Ordering”Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the EarthJane Jacobs, The Life and Death of Great American CitiesQuill R. Kukla, City LivingChristine de Pizan, City of LadiesPlato, RepublicAngel Rama, The Lettered CityGeorg Simmel, “Metropolis and Mental Life”Iris Marion Young, "City Life and Difference"Blade Runner (1982)Parasite (2019)Barbie (2023)Overthink ep. 32, AstrologyPatreon | patreon.com/overthinkpodcast 

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“They find our bodies repulsive.” On episode 96 of Overthink, Ellie and David bring on Dr. Kate Manne, philosopher and author of Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia. She explains the moral failures and biomedical perils of our fatphobic culture and its misleading imperative to diet. This look at the politics of fat, fatness, and fatphobia in the philosophical canon and beyond to reveal rich links to questions of accessibility, justice, and intimacy. Should we trust the BMI (Body Mass Index) as a measure of health? Is the future in Ozempic? Why are we encouraged to see our body’s biological need for nutrition as “food noise”? And what might it take to hear the music of our human bodily diversity?Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works DiscussedPaul Campos, The Obesity MythAncel Keys, et al., “Indices of relative weight and obesity”Adolphe Quetelet, On Man and the Development of His FacultiesSabrina Strings, Fearing the Black BodyAudre Lorde, A Piece of LightThomas Nagel, “Free Will”Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face FatphobiaOverthink ep 27. From Body Positivity to Fat Feminism (feat. Amelia Hruby)

Follow Dr. Kate Manne on Substack!

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Night vision. Superhuman strength. And… kale salad? In episode 95 of Overthink, Ellie and David explore the weird world of biohackers, who leverage science and technology to optimize their bodies. The movement raises rich philosophical questions, from the blurry ethics of self-experimentation, to the consequences of extreme Cartesian dualism, to the awkward tension in our technological nostalgia for a pastoral paradise. If biohacking taps into the basic human desire to experience and investigate, it perhaps also pushes too far toward transcending our bodies. The stakes are political, metaphysical, and ethical — and your hosts are here to make philosophical sense of it all.Works DiscussedDave Asprey, Smarter Not HarderAlison Gopnik, The Philosophical BabyMirjam Grewe-Salfeld, Biohacking, Bodies, and Do-It-YourselfMichel de Montaigne, "Of Experience"Max More, The Transhumanist ReaderJoel Michael Reynolds, "Genopower: On Genomics, Disability, and Impairment"Smithsonian Mag, “200 Frozen Heads and Bodies Await Revival at This Arizona Cryonics Facility”Baruch de Spinoza, EthicsWashington Post, “The Key to Glorifying a Questionable Diet? Be a tech bro and call it ‘biohacking'"Patricia J. Zettler et. al., “Regulating genetic biohacking”Austin Powers (1997)If Books Could Kill PodcastOverthink ep 31. Genomics feat. Joel Michael Reynolds

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Works DiscussedLauren Berlant, Cruel OptimismJeffery R. Di Leo, "Corporate Humanities in Higher Education"David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 YearsCathy Park Hong, Minor FeelingsGeoffery Ingham, The Nature of MoneyNietzsche, The Genealogy of MoralsPlato, RepublicShakespeare, The Merchant of VeniceShatapatha BrahmanaAdam Smith, The Wealth of NationsHEROES actPatreon | patreon.com/overthinkpodcast 

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Tell us who you pity and we’ll tell you who you are! In episode 93 of Overthink, Ellie and David guide you through the philosophy behind this “well-meaning” emotion. From Aristotle’s account of pity in theater, to problematic portrayals of disability in British charity telethons, pity has had an outsized role our social and cultural worlds. But who is the object of our pity, and why? Your hosts dissect various archetypes of pity, such as Father Mackenzie (a character in Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles) and the elusive Corn Man (a figure invented by Ellie while in Greece!). Where is the line between pity and compassion? How does pity interact with our social responsibilities and power structures? And, is pity a meaningful part of the good life, or is it an emotion we would all be better off without?Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works DiscussedAristotle, Poetics & RhetoricThe Beatles, Eleanor RigbyDavid Hume, A Treatise of Human NatureKristján Kristjánsson, “Pity: A Mitigated Defense”Martha Nussbaum, “Tragedy and Self-Sufficiency: Plato and Aristotle on Fear and Pity”Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and JewAdam Smith, The Theory of Moral SentimentsJoseph Stramondo, “How an Ideology of Pity is a Social Harm for People With Disabilities”Bernard Whitley, Mary Kite, and Lisa Wagner, Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination

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YouTube | Overthink podcastSpecial thanks to Alexandra Peabody for her support in researching this episode!

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