Shows
OverthinkEarthThis one’s going to rock your world. In episode 132 of Overthink, Ellie and David dig into the earth for the third part of their four-part series on the elements. They discuss everything from earthworms and carbon dating to the “solidity” of the earth. They look to Foucault, Freud, and Husserl for insights about how the earth can act as a metaphor for the mind and for the past. They also wonder: Is the earth inert matter or a living being? And why do so many creation myths present humans as “made” of earth/clay/mud? So, what is it that we...2025-06-1742 minOverthinkWaterOceans, baths, ponds, and amniotic sacs? In episode 131 of Overthink, David and Ellie take a deep dive into the topic of water as part of their four-part series on the elements. They discuss how all life begins in water, and the conceptual features of water, such as its fluidity and shapelessness. What did Thales of Miletus mean by ‘all is water’? How is water used as a metaphor for the Dao? And at what point does being in water go from feeling like Moana to feeling like Jaws? In the Patreon bonus segment, they talk about water as a symb...2025-06-0353 minOverthinkCleanlinessEpisode 128 – CleanlinessHow 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 e...2025-04-2255 minOverthinkOligarchyIs 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 invest...2025-04-0854 minOverthinkTrans Identity with Talia Mae BettcherHow 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 id...2025-03-1153 minOverthinkWritingYou 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...2025-01-2859 minOverthinkDrivingHave you ever wanted to go on a road trip with the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan? After listening to this episode, you certainly won’t! In episode 119 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about the experience of driving and the moral and social dilemmas involved with it. How does driving alter our relationship with time and space? What is the “long distance truck driver problem”, and what does it have to do with animal consciousness? And how should we respond to the rise in self-driving cars? Buckle in and get ready for this ride into the philosophy of driving. Plus, in the...2024-12-1758 minOverthinkBlack Consciousness with Lewis GordonDo you need black skin to be Black? How might concepts such as white privilege be limiting our understanding of how racism works? In Episode 117 of Overthink, Ellie and David chat with philosopher Lewis Gordon about his book, Fear of Black Consciousness. They talk through the history of anti-Black racism, the existential concept of bad faith, why Rachel Dolezal might have Black consciousness, and Frantz Fanon’s experience of being called a racial slur by a white child on a train. From the American Blues to the Caribbean movement of Negritude, this episode is full of insight into Black li...2024-11-191h 00
Branches of Philosophy Podcast[107] When Animals Dream The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness By David M. Peña-GuzmánAn introduction and summary of "When Animals DreamThe Hidden World of Animal Consciousness"By David M. Peña-Guzmán 2022
A spellbinding look at the philosophical and moral implications of animal dreamingAre humans the only dreamers on Earth? What goes on in the minds of animals when they sleep? When Animals Dream brings together behavioral and neuroscientific research on animal sleep with philosophical theories of dreaming. It shows that dreams provide an invaluable window into the cognitive and emotional lives of nonhuman animals, giving us access to a seemingly inaccessible realm of animal experience.David Peña-Guzmán unco...2024-11-0818 minOverthinkPredictive Brain with Andy ClarkPhantom phone buzzes? Painless mosquito bites? Toy masks flipped inside-out? It might be your brain bringing order to its complex world. In episode 109 of Overthink, Ellie and David interview cognitive philosopher Andy Clark, whose cutting edge work on perception builds off theories of computation to offer an intriguing new model of mind and experience. He explains why the predictive processing model promises a healthier relation to neurodiversity, and they all explore its real-world applications across placebos, road safety, chronic pain, anxiety, and even the accidental success of ‘positive thinking.’ Plus, in the bonus, Ellie and David discuss depression, plasticity, qual...2024-07-3055 minOverthinkFunEven philosophers need downtime. In episode 106 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a break and chase down fun’s place in today’s world — from its aesthetic opposition to the highbrow realm of beauty, to its peculiar absence from philosophical discourse. What role does fun play in the good life? How does fun relate to art, play, and ritual? Can you really have fun by yourself? And what happens when the lines blur between the fun and the political?Check out the episode's extended cut here!Works DiscussedTheodo...2024-06-1858 minOverthinkCivil Disobedience with Noëlle McAfeeDo political subjects have a default obligation to obey the law? In episode 105 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss civil disobedience in the present context of university activism for divestment from genocide in Gaza. They chart the genealogy of the concept of disobedience in political theory, from Thoreau and MLK through to today. Together with guest Noëlle McAfee, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Emory University, they reflect on the relationship between legal protest, civil disobedience, and political dialogue, and think about why activism must be part of any healthy democracy. Focusing on the psychoanalytic concept of ‘breakdown’, McAfe...2024-06-0453 minOverthinkReadingThis is one for the books. In episode 104 of Overthink, Ellie and David consider what makes reading so rewarding, and, for many people today, so challenging! How did society shift toward inward silent reading and away from reading aloud in the Middle Ages? How have changes in teaching phonics and factors of classism, accessibility, and educational justice made it harder for the young to read? Why is reading philosophy so hard, and how can we increase our reading stamina?Check out the episode's extended cut here!Works DiscussedMarcel Proust, Journée des L...2024-05-2159 min
Our Hen House: Vegan & Animal Rights Movement | Stories from the Frontlines of Animal LiberationWhen Animals Dream w/ David Peña-GuzmánEveryone who lives with an animal would think it rather obvious that they dream, but believe it or not, this is not an accepted fact in the scientific community. This week, we speak with David Peña-Guzmán about his book When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness.
ABOUT OUR GUEST David M. Peña-Guzmán is an associate professor of humanities at SF State and co-host of the podcast Overthink. He specializes in animal studies, the history and philosophy of science, theories of consciousness, and 20th century French phil...2024-04-061h 48OverthinkZombiesWho’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....2024-03-1259 minOverthinkReputationThey 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...2024-02-2759 minOverthinkCitiesThe 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?...2024-02-131h 02OverthinkCitiesThe 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?...2024-02-131h 02OverthinkDebtYou owe this one a listen. In episode 94 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss everything debt, from student loans and bank bailouts to the importance of honoring one’s intellectual forebears. Did Shakespeare’s Antonio really pay Shylock with “a pound of flesh”? Why does Nietzsche say that the Christian God is a creditor of infinite debt? Who really benefits from bailouts under capitalism today? And might it be time to bring back good old “jubilees,” i.e., sanctioned acts of collective debt cancellation? As they talk through these questions, your hosts explore how debt has structured social, family, and religiou...2024-01-0253 minOverthinkPityTell 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...2023-12-1958 minOverthinkDaddy IssuesWho’s your daddy? Episode 90 is all about daddy issues. Ellie and David investigate father-child relations and the sexual, emotional, and familial worlds they create. From summer zaddies and sexy dad bods to hero feminist dads, your hosts travel from psychoanalysis all the way to theology to explore the expansive world of father figures. Do we all, as Julia Kristeva says, harbor unconscious fantasies of seeing our fathers “beaten”? Could civilization itself, as Freud suggests, be rooted in an archaic act of patricide for which we still feel guilty without realizing it? Ellie and David tackle hard questions about how pa...2023-11-0758 minOverthinkStandpoint Epistemology with Briana TooleWhat does it mean to be marginalized? Does marginalization give some people more epistemic authority than others? And, if so, what should we all do with this information? In episode 84 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about standpoint theory, its complex intellectual history, and its relationship to W. E. B. DuBois’ concept of double consciousness. They welcome an expert on the subject: Dr. Briana Toole, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College. In their conversation, they chat about how standpoint theory makes sense of electoral politics, educational policy, bizarre reality TV, and much more. They also discuss Corrupt th...2023-08-151h 00OverthinkExerciseWestern philosophy started… at the gym. In episode 83 of Overthink, Ellie and David tackle the philosophy of workouts, from Plato’s days as a wrestler to the modern loneliness of a solitary bench press. As they discuss the role of exercise — which the Greeks called gymnastics — in building bodies and training souls, they consider the ancient Olympics, the cravings for health and beauty that guide us through what David calls the "Protestant work-out ethic," and Jean Baudrillard's thoughts about Americans' passion for jogging.Works DiscussedJean Baudrillard, AmericaMark Greif, “Against Exercise”Drew Hyland, Phil...2023-08-0156 minOverthinkArt and AI with Raphaël MillièreMachine minds can work a paintbrush, but are they really making art? In episode 80 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk with guest Raphaël Millière, scholar and philosophy lecturer at Columbia University, on the aesthetic merits of computer-generated art. They discuss the thorny marriage of art and technology in everything from the early days of photography to YACHT’s AI-assisted pop songs. Why do we expect art to express human emotions? Is prompt-engineering for AI models an art in itself? And, if ‘great artists steal,’ is DALL·E the greatest artist of us all?Works discussed...2023-06-2059 minOverthinkIntellectualsFrom Émile Zola to Edward Said, from Antonio Gramsci to… Joe Rogan? In episode 79 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss the figure of the high-minded ‘intellectual’ and their role in today’s mass-media landscape. Who are intellectuals, what do they do, and what are they for? Ellie and David ask whether intellectuals have a duty to participate in public debate, and whether they can truly partake in liberatory action in such a capacity.Works DiscussedJulien Benda, The Treason of IntellectualsChristoph Charles, Birth of the Intellectuals: 1880-1900Didier Eribon, Returning to ReimsAnton...2023-06-0653 minOverthinkBad Movies with Matthew StrohlGuilty pleasures or cult classics, at the end of the day they’re just bad movies. In episode 76 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk with Matthew Strohl about bad movies and why it’s okay to love them. Strohl is a professor of philosophy at the University of Montana who specializes in aesthetics and ancient philosophy. He is the author of Why It’s Okay to Love Bad Movies. Here, he talks with Ellie and David about what makes certain movies “bad” yet also somehow “good,” and introduces us to two ways of relating to bad movies: bad movie ridicule vs ba...2023-04-2551 minOverthinkSilence*cricket noises* In episode 75 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss silence and its connection with awe, ecstasy, and the experience of the divine. They talk about David’s experience staying silent during a collegiate debate and Ellie’s practice of meditation as it relates to silence. How does being silent reveal the inner and outer noise that so often surrounds us? They talk about Christian mysticism, Dauenhauer's deep silence, and Heidegger’s call of conscience and explore the various forms of silence that shape our everyday lives.Works Discussed St. Tho...2023-04-1156 minOverthinkWhy Live? with Céline LeboeufTo be or not to be? That is the question. At the center of Hamlet’s soliloquy is the issue of whether life is worth living. In episode 72 of Overthink, Ellie and David consider this issue with philosopher and existentialism expert Céline Leboeuf. How can we find meaning in our lives when the world seems random and indifferent to our interests? Leboeuf talks about how her personal experience with an existential crisis and her philosophical search for a way out of it led her to consider religious, atheist, and spiritual answers to the question "Why Live?" Ellie and Dav...2023-02-2859 minOverthinkFOMO (Fear of Missing Out)In the next hour, I might miss out on the greatest thing that could happen to me. Or maybe that’s just the FOMO talking. FOMO, the fear of missing out, has infiltrated the zeitgeist in the past decade. What does the obsession with FOMO tell us about our desire to connect with others in an age of consumer capitalism and social media? In episode 70, Ellie and David consider the fear of missing out in light of Nietzsche’s ressentiment, Freud’s psychoanalysis of Little Hans, and how FOMO has changed due to COVID. They consider whether the movement toward...2023-01-311h 00OverthinkTasteIt’s corn! A big lump with knobs, it has the juice, I can’t imagine a more beautiful thing. Wise words about corn that relate to the sense of taste. In episode 67 of Overthink, Ellie and David finish their series on the five senses talking about the gustatory experience. They consider if taste is merely a subjective experience or are there some things that objectively taste good? Ellie and David discuss how having good taste relates to the perceptual experience of taste and why taste is such a big part of community.Works DiscussedJean...2022-12-2052 minOverthinkVisionAnd at last I see the light. In episode 64 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss vision in the second installment of their ongoing series on the five senses. They discuss the prevalence of visual metaphors for knowledge, and why sight has historically been the most privileged of the senses. Ellie and David talk about the difference between Greek and Vedic approaches to vision and how culture and language can impact important aspects of the visual experience such as the ability to perceive the color blue. Works DiscussedHans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern World2022-11-0856 minOverthinkCuriosity (feat. Perry Zurn and Dani S. Bassett)Curiosity led Pandora to open a box, but what does being curious look like in our everyday lives? In episode 62, Ellie and David discuss the vilification of curiosity and the role of curiosity in the modern education system. To help, they talk with philosophy professor Perry Zurn and bioengineering professor Dani S. Bassett, twins who co-authored the book Curious Minds: The Power of Connection. Together, they consider how we can understand and cultivate different types of curiosity. Works Discussed Saint Augustine, The Confessions Francis Bacon, "Of Tribute" Barbara Benedict, Curiosity: A Cultural History of Earl...2022-10-1155 minOverthinkSelf-KnowledgeKnow thyself, the inscription at the shrine of Delphi reads. But can we truly know ourselves, like the Ancient Greeks believed? In episode 61 of Overthink, Ellie and David explore the concept of self-knowledge from looking inside ourselves to the reflection we put out into the world. Do we gain self knowledge through introspection, or are there better ways of finding out who we are? They discuss everything from imagination to doubting as a way to get a sense of ourselves.Works DiscussedCatriona MacKenzie, Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self2022-09-2759 minOverthinkInfluence(rs)Likes, lighting, and Lil Miquela. Influencers have taken over the online world, promoting everything from brands to lifestyle changes. But, what does it mean to exert influence over somebody and how has the rise of social media created a whole new category of the influencer? In episode 60 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss the job and person we now know as the influencer and how objectification and relationships play into this role. Works CitedSimone de Beauvoir, The Second SexTalcott Parsons, “On the Concept of Influence”Time Magazine, “The 25 Most Influential People on the...2022-09-1355 minOverthinkFilmSince the invention of film, we’ve seen an unimaginable shift in the nature of human perception — but what is film, really? In episode 59 of Overthink, Ellie and David dive into the nature of film. What distinguishes film from other art forms, like photography and theater? Do films depict reality as it is, or are films separate worlds in themselves? They dissect the ideology of the movie theater, human perceptions of montage over time and across cultures, the condition of the film spectator, and more!Works DiscussedBéla Balázs, “Theory of the Film”Jean-L...2022-08-3058 min