On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not

"In his brilliant new book, Burton systematically shows that certainty is a mental state . . . that doesn't dependably reflect object truth." —Forbes

You recognize when you know something for certain, right? You "know" the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001—you know these things, well, because you just do.

In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton challenges the notions of how we think about what we know. He ...