Michael Lewis

Amnon [Rapoport] also had the best seat in the house when Amos [Tversy] dediced what he was going to do with his life. Hebrew University in the late 1950s required students to pick two fields of concentration. Amos had chosen philosophy and psychology. But Amos approached intellectual life strategically, as if it were an oil field to be drilled, and after two years of sitting through philosophy classes he announced that philosophy was a dry well. « I remember his words », recalled Amnon. « He said, « There is nothing we can do in philosophy. Plato solved too many of the problems. We can’t have any impact un this area. There are too many smart guys and too few problems left, and the problems have no solutions. » » The mind-body problem was a good example. How are our various mental events - what you believe, what you think - related to our physical states? What is the relationship between our bodies and our minds? The question was at least as old as Descartes, but there was still no answer in sight - at least not in philosophy. The trouble with philosophy, Amos thought, was that it didn’t play the rules of science. The philosopher tested his theories of human nature on a sample size of one - himself. Psychology at least pretended to be a science. It kept at least one hand at all times on hard data. A psychologist might test whatever theory he devised on a representative sample of humanity. Vos theories mighty be tested by others, and his findings reproduced, or falsified. If a psychologist stumbled upon a truth he might make it stick.

3. The Insider, p. 99-100