Reflection

Overthink

In the final episode of Overthink, hosts Ellie Anderson and David Pena-Guzman reflect on the end of their five-year podcast journey while ex

Key takeaways

• Reflection is not merely passive observation but a dynamic process that can both alienate us from our lived experience and reconnect us to it.
• The myth of Narcissus illustrates the dangers of excessive self-focus and the illusion of seeing oneself as an object separate from reality.

Main topics

• The philosophy of reflection
• Myth of Narcissus and self-identity

Notable quotes

"We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please consider subscribing to our sub stack for extended ad-free episodes..."

Conclusion

As Overthink concludes, Ellie and David affirm that reflection—when approached with care—is

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:15) Hello, and welcome to Overthink, Speaker 1 (0:16) the podcast where the two philosophy professors you've come to know and love bring big ideas into everyday life. Speaker 2 (0:23) I'm Dr. David Pena-Guzman. And Speaker 1 (0:25) I'm Dr. Ellie Anderson. Speaker 2 (0:27) And for our entire backlog of extended episodes, community discussion, and more, check us out on Substack. Speaker 1 (0:34) David, it is a momentous day. This is our last... ever podcast recording for Overthink. This is our final episode. Speaker 2 (0:46) Okay, yeah, my musical effects are not very good, but I am feeling a mixture of emotions about the end of this project that we've been doing for half a decade. And it's just wild to think that we would end up here when we began this project. From our living rooms and under our laundry baskets and containers and closets. Speaker 1 (1:12) Under our laundry baskets? Speaker 2 (1:14) Well, I was under a laundry basket. I was like under a laundry rack. Maybe that's more of the spatially accurate description. I was Speaker 1 (1:22) like, how do you get under a laundry basket? It's because I'm so tiny, Ellie. Speaker 1 (1:33) When we started the show, we were living in a very different time, for many reasons. But one of the things was related to how philosophy was perceived. I think in 2020, philosophy hadn't quite, like, really surged into the public. Speaker 1 (1:52) And I'm just really proud of the small part that we've been able to play there to show people that our discipline is relevant to everyday life. It's important. It has tons of ideas worth thinking about. And yeah, I feel so happy with the audience that we've built, the community we've built. And I'm excited to see what's next for both of us. Speaker 2 (2:11) Yeah. I'm Speaker 1 (2:12) just like, I look back at our past episodes. I'm so proud. Like, look at this. Look at this baby we made. Speaker 2 (2:18) It's been really. validating actually to hear from people say how meaningful this project has been for them. That includes people who are professors and who incorporate our episodes into their teaching. But it also includes people who are completely outside of academia, who in my case, they've come up to me and they've asked me like, hey, are you David from Overthink? Like, I just want to let you know that I really love your show. And it's brought me back sort of under the wing of. thinking conceptually and theoretically and enjoying that as part of my every day. Speaker 1 (2:53) Totally. I mean, I think it's safe to say this is the beginning, not the end for us in terms of our public facing philosophy work. I mean, in the meantime, folks can continue to follow my work on Substack or I'm on Instagram at Eliander PhD. I know the PhD is like a cringe part of. the handle Speaker 2 (3:11) now. There has been a lot of change around that. Speaker 1 (3:13) But, you know, try having a name like Ellie Anderson and you'll see your options are relatively limited. So those are Subsecond Instagram are currently the best ways to keep in touch with me. Speaker 2 (3:21) People can find me also on Instagram and they can also contact me via email at, oh my God, what is my email? DavidMPena at gmail.com. I know Speaker 1 (3:32) it. At Speaker 2 (3:32) sfsu.edu. Thank you, Ellie. Oh, Speaker 1 (3:33) at sfsu. Yeah, Speaker 2 (3:35) it's just like. Over the years, I've had multiple versions at various universities, and I just like hesitate all the time to give the right one. But I had a right. Speaker 1 (3:42) I just didn't have the eye. Speaker 2 (3:43) Yeah, you can Google the both of us and you can find us very quickly. But you are right that it is a momentous episode. And, you know, you said that the dominant experience or feeling for you right now is joy. I think I find myself in a meditative and reflective. moment in connection to the end of the show. And I think that's part of the reason why we decided to do our final episode on the topic of reflection. Absolutely. Because I find myself wanting to reflect on what this project has meant, both for me as an individual, but also for me as an academic. And just the act of reflection is such a central element of philosophical discourse and philosophical practice that it just seemed like the rational thing to do to end. reflecting on what we have done and reflecting on the very activity of reflecting. Speaker 1 (4:33) I'm feeling good about this final episode choice. I also want to say, I mean, when we were thinking about what final episode to do, we also wanted to keep in mind that, you know, hopefully people continue to discover Overthink for years and years to come. And if and when they do, this is going to be the first episode that comes in their feed. So they might not want an episode that's like. a meta reflection on a podcast they've never listened to before. So I will say we have now indulged in some, you know, sweet reflection about the end of Overthink, but the rest of the episode is going to be about the concept of reflection in classic Overthink style. So we're going to pull back from the meta analysis now and get into the heart of it. David, what do you think about when you think about the term reflection? Speaker 2 (5:19) So as somebody who is interested in science and the philosophy of science, I immediately go to the literal definition of reflection, which is a property of how light behaves, right? Like light can be reflected off of surfaces and enable vision in that way. That's why we can see things because of the mechanics of light. And in thinking about that in relation to philosophy, it makes me reflect. on how philosophers have understood and conceptualized the act of knowledge and thinking as a kind of reflection, using light as a metaphor, right? Like we reflect upon the world and sort of reflect it back, creating representations of things outside of us. And what I maybe want us to just keep in mind is that the metaphor of literal light might be useful for thinking about what we're doing when we're thinking. But the metaphor also breaks down because in many, many ways, the act of thinking is not actually a reflective practice. It's not actually a reflection in the literal sense. And Speaker 1 (6:29) what is a reflection in the literal sense of things? Speaker 2 (6:31) It's the bouncing off and away of light. And so it is largely a passive practice. It's a bouncing back with some distortion, you know, like colors are like the... part of the spectrum that an object does not reflect back. So there is a little bit of a change there. But in general, the idea that the mind is almost like a beacon of light that shines upon the world is what grounds this notion that we are reflecting. Speaker 1 (6:54) Yeah. But Speaker 2 (6:55) it also might lead us astray if we think about it too much under that frame. Speaker 1 (7:00) Well, yeah, absolutely. And I think this idea of thinking as something that passively occurs or even of like experiencing as something that passively occurs is. implied within a certain tradition of the philosophy of reflection, namely the tradition that emerges in the early modern period. And I think that's a view that you and I would like to cut against. So some of our reflections on reflection will be very much in contrast to that dominant picture. Speaker 2 (7:26) Today, we are talking about reflection. Speaker 1 (7:29) What does the myth of narcissists tell us about viewing ourselves from the outside? Speaker 2 (7:34) How can reflection both pull us out of our everyday lives and connect us back to them? Speaker 1 (7:40) And how much do we know about non-human animals' capacity for reflection? Speaker 1 (7:52) David, you and I are going to start in a place of myth with the myth of Narcissus, especially as it's articulated in Ovid's Metamorphosis. We decided to read this myth and use it as an opportunity for thinking about one of the central images of reflection that culture has to offer us, right? Narcissus is this youth who basically dies because he falls in love with himself in front of a reflecting pool. Speaker 2 (8:21) Yeah, he falls in love with his own reflection. And the myth is great. So I hadn't read it in a very long time. I don't think I had read the myth since I was in undergrad. And so it was nice to go back to it, pick up my copy of Ovid once again, Metamorphosis. I Speaker 1 (8:34) couldn't find mine, so I had to borrow Trevor's. Oh, I Speaker 2 (8:37) mean, and it's a wonderful story that raises fundamental philosophical questions, like perennial questions about the nature of reality, about the nature of the self, about the nature of love, about... the way in which we relate to other people. And so Ellie, maybe you can begin us by telling us just some of the basics of the story, the myth of Narcissus. Who is he? What happened to him? Why did he end up falling in love with himself? Speaker 1 (9:05) He was born beautiful, essentially, from birth adorable, Ovid, right? He's named Narcissus. And she asks the seer, the very famous seer. ancient seer Tiresias, famous thanks to Oedipus and other important supporting roles in ancient myths. She asked Tiresias, will Narcissus live long? Will he live to old age? And Tiresias answers, if he shall himself not know. She's like, what? What does this mean? What does this mean? OK, so Narcissus is kind of going about his life. He is the object of many people's obsession. He's particularly appealing to girls and young guys who think he's like the hottest guy that they've ever seen. And he just rejects. He's rejecting the young girls and the young guys left and right. I Speaker 2 (9:53) know he's like the hot commodity in high school. He's 16. He's 16. Yeah. And Speaker 1 (9:58) he's pretty arrogant as well. He not only dismisses all these would-be suitors and ladies who are pursuing him. But he also mocks them. And this nymph Echo falls in love with him. Narcissus rejects Echo, just as he has rejected everybody else. And one of the people he rejects, who is only described as one scorned youth in Ovid's myth, prays that Narcissus will never know love. And Nemesis is like, yeah, yeah, prayer fulfilled. So then Narcissus comes upon this pool, this sheltered pool surrounded by grass. Nobody around. And he sees in the pool the hottest person he's ever seen. Hair worthy of Bacchus or Apollo. Face so fine. Ivory neck. Cheeks smooth. Snowy pallor. Face card 10 for Narcissus. Doesn't realize it's himself. Falls in love. And then is devastated when he realizes it's himself and basically dies of sadness. Speaker 2 (11:01) Okay, so now we have the basic ingredients of this Roman myth. Ellie, I want you to repeat one thing, though, because we were working with different translations. What was the prophecy that Tiresias gives of the condition under which he will be happy? Speaker 1 (11:15) If he shall himself not know. Speaker 2 (11:18) Okay, if he shall himself not know, because the version that I read translated that a little bit differently. And it was like, he will lead a happy and fulfilling life. only on the condition that he shall not discover himself, which I actually like a little better as a translation, but that's neither here nor there. So the idea is that if he comes to know himself or to discover himself, Speaker 1 (11:39) that will Speaker 2 (11:40) be the source of his discontent. And I just want to say from the very beginning how quintessentially tragic that prophecy is, because often we think that as you grow up, Your self-knowledge is likely to bring about happiness, right? You become happier and more fulfilled as an adult, the more you get to truly know who you are. And here we have an inversion of that very common way of thinking about what it means to mature, where maturing is actually the very cause of your downfall, in this case, through this figure of narcissus. Well, Speaker 1 (12:15) I wouldn't say it's maturing. So I hear your point that it's... self-knowledge or self-discovery that is going to be his downfall. And so the idea is like he'll only live long if he doesn't know or discover himself. Equally important, though, I think is a second meaning here, which is he cannot know or discover himself as himself. Right. Speaker 2 (12:35) And Speaker 1 (12:35) so he's not devastated when he knows himself by seeing himself reflected in the pool. He's devastated when he realizes, oh my God, that's me. That's not somebody else. The Speaker 2 (12:47) myth is so fertile for interpretation. It just like, it leaves so many questions open and guides us to think about them in new ways. The idea here that he sort of gets broken down by getting to know himself, like the moment that he recognizes himself in his reflection on the pond. I'm not so sure about that. I think he really becomes heartbroken. when he realizes that he can't possess himself because the person on the other side of the reflection cannot be grasped, cannot be touched. And so it's not the moment of seeing, Speaker 1 (13:21) but Speaker 2 (13:21) it's Speaker 1 (13:22) actually Speaker 2 (13:22) the failure of the moment of touching that follows that then throws him into a crisis. Speaker 1 (13:29) Yeah, yeah. But I didn't say it was the moment