Herbert A. Simon
American political scientist, economist and cognitive psychologist (1916 to 2001), known for bounded rationality and satisficing; Turing Award 1975 with Allen Newell, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1978.
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Herbert A. Simon did not write this page.
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Their wordsThe idea that human behavior may be studied scientifically is never hinted until much later in the educational process – it was certainly not conveyed by history or “civics” courses as they were then taught.
↗Herbert A. Simon, Biographical (Nobel autobiography, 1978)nobelprize.org 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsThe social sciences, I thought, needed the same kind of rigor and the same mathematical underpinnings that had made the “hard” sciences so brilliantly successful.
↗Herbert A. Simon, Biographical (Nobel autobiography, 1978)nobelprize.org 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsAbout 1954, he and I conceived the idea that the right way to study problem-solving was to simulate it with computer programs.
↗Herbert A. Simon, Biographical (Nobel autobiography, 1978)nobelprize.org 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsIn the “politics” of science, which these and other activities have entailed, I have had two guiding principles – to work for the “hardening” of the social sciences so that they will be better equipped with the tools they need for their difficult research tasks; and to work for close relations between natural scientists and social scientists so that they can jointly contribute their special knowledge and skills to those many complex questions of public policy that call for both kinds of wisdom.
↗Herbert A. Simon, Biographical (Nobel autobiography, 1978)nobelprize.org 4th of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsThe decisions to take these steps were acknowledgements that all the great problems that face our world today have both technical and human content – the one intermingled inseparably with the other.
↗Herbert A. Simon, Nobel Banquet speech (10 December 1978)nobelprize.org 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsTo deal with these problems – of world population and hunger, of peace, of energy and mineral resources, of environmental pollution, of poverty – we must broaden and deepen our knowledge of Nature’s laws, and we must broaden and deepen our understanding of the laws of human behavior.
↗Herbert A. Simon, Nobel Banquet speech (10 December 1978)nobelprize.org 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsOn this occasion we renew our resolution to use all the powers of the human mind, finite though they be, to search forward to a more humane world.
↗Herbert A. Simon, Nobel Banquet speech (10 December 1978)nobelprize.org 3rd of 3 in this piece
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