In 2011, I interviewed Daniel Kahneman, the Israeli-American psychologist. The Nobel laureate had just published the bestselling Thinking, Fast and Slow, and his reputation was at an all-time high.
A few sentences from that conversation made an especially deep impression on me. When Kahneman spoke about Amos Tversky, his intellectual soulmate who had died in 1996, his voice changed. It signalled loss and reverence, at the same time hinting that the relationship was intimately bound up with his own identity. Kahneman had lost part of himself, too, perhaps the greater part.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
