In episode 159 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss illness. They explore how illness has been mythologized, how it may alienate us from our bodies, and how it impacts social relationships. Is science the solution to the mythologization of illness, or is the scientific model of illness its own form of mythology? How should we conceptualize illness? Is it as a “deviation” from a norm? And if so, what norm? Finally, what can we learn about illness from a phenomenological approach that centers the patient’s first-person experience?

From Kant’s distinction between organisms and mechanisms, to Deleuze and Guattari’s infamous call for ‘bodies without organs,’ Ellie and David uncover and question the ontological and metaphorical baggage behind organisms. In the bonus, they discuss relations between organisms, politics, and reason through the thought of Lukács and Canguilhem.