Philosophy Talk is back at The Marsh Theater in Berkeley on Sunday June 22 for the final two live recordings in our 2013-14 season.

• 12:00pm - Second-Guessing Ourselves with Sherri Roush
  We like to think of ourselves as self-aware, reflective beings, but psychological studies demonstrate that we’re usually overconfident in the accuracy of our own beliefs. Memory, for example, can be extremely unreliable, even when we feel certain we know what happened. Surprisingly, when we’re made aware of this, we adjust our level of confidence in ourselves only slightly. How, then, can we doubt ourselves in a rational and efficient manner to bring our beliefs closer to reality? And, just as importantly, how do we prevent ourselves from falling into the other extreme of constant second guessing? John and Ken think twice with Sherri Roush from UC Berkeley, author of Tracking Truth: Knowledge, Evidence, and Science. (buy tickets)
   
• 3:00pm - Is Intuition a Guide to Truth? with Alvin Goldman
  Turns out that Galileo was right and Aristotle was wrong: in a vacuum, a feather and a bowling ball will fall from a tall building at exactly the same speed. This is not to say that Aristotle wasn’t a brilliant thinker; empirical evidence shows he just had a wrong intuition. Even the most powerful intuitions we have can be misleading. Why is it, then, that many philosophers treat them as crucial when arguing for a conclusion? Can intuitions lead us to important truths about the world, or do they merely teach us about ourselves? John and Ken trust their gut with Alvin Goldman from Rutgers University, author of Pathways to Knowledge: Public and Private.  (buy tickets)