Breakups

02/11/25 • 58 min

2 Listeners

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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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”

Support the show

Previous Episode

Writing

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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Next Episode

Intuition

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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Overthink - Breakups

Transcript

David00:00:14.189

Hello, and welcome to Overthink.

Ellie00:00:17.670

where two friends who are also professors show that philosophy is not just some ivory tower pursuit, but can help you understand your everyday problems. If not, well, get over them.

David00:00:28.304

I'm David Peña Guzman.

Ellie00:00:30.250

And I'm Ellie Anderson. There was a New Yorker article recently c