Both points are actually covered in the book, if I recall correctly. Kahneman writes something along the lines of Tversky or him remarking to the other that they were "just re-discovering things that their grandmother used to tell them."

Kahneman later writes that the only way to avoid cognitive biases that he's seen is to know them and be vigilant for them. And even that doesn't work a good deal of the time. I remember that passage being a very sobering part of the book.

I would say that the book is Kahneman's attempt to actually add to that 2500 year effort by making the observations more formalized, but available to a wider audience.