Daniel Kahneman

Penguin/Allen Lane 2011

I first met Daniel Kahneman in May 2001 when I was researching my still-unpublished book about probability. I had expected to visit him at his office in Princeton’s economics department, but for some reason I can no longer remember, Kahneman said the interview should take place at his suburban house.

I was there to ask him about the work he was already famous for—his research with Amos Tversky on heuristics and biases. Patiently, Kahneman answered my questions. But he also wanted to tell me about what were then his current interests.

“What we get, which is really very beautiful—this is what I’m writing about—what is becoming increasingly influential in psychology, is what is called a two system view. You have one system that is intuitive and very quick, and is perception-like, and you have another system that does formal reasoning and logical operations”.

I didn’t pay much attention to those words at the time. A decade later, the zeitgeist has caught up with Kahneman, helping to make his book a best seller. And it deserves to be. Ever since the late Peter Bernstein published Against the Gods, Kahneman has been anthologized and popularized by many writers. Far better in my opinion is to read an accessible book on Kahneman’s work by the man himself.