'Thinking, Fast and Slow' by Daniel Kahneman

[Aaron]

Just finished reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by the grandfather of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman. The book breaks down thinking into two systems: intuition and deliberation, and explores their interaction. The main argument of the book is that intuitive thinking often misleads us, and that it is important to know the many ways that it does so in order that we may catch the errors. Very interesting and useful stuff. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/11/13...

Cheers,
Aaron

[Amy]

Looks like you've written up a very thorough summary of the book. I look forward to reading the whole post on your blog. The subject matter reminds me a little bit of "The Social Animal" by David Brooks, which I read a year or so ago. But my guess is that Brooks's book is probably more anecdotal. He addressed the importance of the unconscious mind in how we interact with others and make key decisions and such.

[James]

@Xox, I haven't read the book in question, but would note that I believe cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz had it right regarding the three factors influencing human societal endeavors. Expanding on Max Weber's work, he theorized that all human groups operate on three levels of organization, "(1) individual personalities, which are shaped and governed by (2) a social system, which is, in turn, shaped and controlled by (3) a separate cultural system." That is why simple reductionist or functionalist approaches to defining societal behavior always seem to fail.