Philosophy Talk returns to The Marsh Theater in Berkeley on Sunday November 10 for the first two live recordings in our 2013-14 season.

• 12:00pm - Freud as a Philosopher with Paul Robinson
  Did you really want to eat that last piece of cake, or were you secretly thinking about your mother? Sigmund Freud, who might have suggested the latter, established the unconscious mind as a legitimate domain for scientific research. He was the first to seriously study dreams and slips of the tongue, and he proposed that neurotic behavior could be explained by appeal to beliefs and desires that we repress. However, many of Freud’s theories have been rejected as unscientific, and his particular brand of psychoanalysis is all but obsolete. So why is Freud still worth remembering? John and Ken welcome Stanford historian Paul Robinson, author of Freud and His Critics. (buy tickets)

• 3:00pm - Weapons of Mass Destruction with Scott Sagan
  The United States recently threatened military action against Syria in response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons. Similar threats have been made against states such as North Korea and Iran that have been suspected of trying to develop nuclear arsenals. Yet the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia, and China have thousands of active nuclear weapons of their own. Is there a morally significant difference between nuclear or chemical weapons and conventional weapons? Should we work toward total disarmament, or do we need these weapons as a deterrent to rogue states? What steps must we take to secure peace in a world rife with weapons of mass destructions? John and Ken put these questions to Stanford political scientist Scott Sagan, co-author of The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate. (buy tickets)