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Herbert A. Simon: The Bounds of Reason in Modern America
Rarely does the world see as versatile a figure as Herbert Simon. A Nobel laureate in economics, he was an accomplished political scientist, winner of a lifetime achievement award from the American Psychological Association, and founder of the Department of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. In all his work in all these fields, he pursued a single to create a science that could map the bounds of human reason and so enlarge its role in human affairs. Hunter Crowther-Heyck uses the career of this unique individual to examine the evolution of the social sciences after World War II, particularly Simon's creation of a new field, systems science, which joined together two distinct, powerful approaches to human behavior, the sciences of choice and control. Simon sought to develop methods by which human behavior, specifically human problem-solving, could be modeled and simulated. Regarding mind and machine as synonymous, Simon applied his models of human behavior to many other areas, from public administration and business management to artificial intelligence and the design of complex social and technical systems. In this informed and discerning study, Crowther-Heyck explores Simon's contributions to science and their influences on modern life and thought. For historians of science, social science, and technology, and for scholars of twentieth-century American intellectual and cultural history, this account of Herbert Simon's life and work provides a rich and valuable perspective.
- GenresScience
432 pages, Hardcover
First published March 23, 2005
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July 14, 2010
OK so I should start with a disclaimer, this is my brother-in-law's book. However that doesn't cloud my judgement, this is a great book about the evolution of one modern intellectual's ideas in the context of the mid-twentieth century.
Although Herbert Simon may not be a household name, his ideas certainly should be. In particular his concepts about problem solving and decision making speak to the way that we all engage in the world.
Hunter follows Simon's evolution from an administrative scientist interested in how people make decisions within the context of the organizations to which they belong to a cognitive and computer scientist interested in how experts solve problems within the context of the domain in which the problem is situated. What carries across his shifts in focus is the concepts of the science of choice (how people make rational choices) and the science of control (how our environment and specifically the organization systems around us determine what choices we have or are able to make). Simon bridged these two ideas with the concept of bounded rationality. To Simon we are neither perfectly rational beings with all of the information necessary to make good rational choices nor are we lab rats caught in a maze with completely determined possibilities. Instead we are capable of free-rational choice, but we are choices are bounded by the realities of our environment.
What is most compelling to me about this idea is how it relates specifically to my work around Frank Levy and Richard Murnane's ideas in The New Division of Labor. Levy and Murnane make the argument that the skills that people will need to be successful in our newly evolving information age can be defined as expert thinking and complex communication. Simon's work as detailed by Hunter complements the ideas about expert thinking by defining the "weak" skills that all problem solvers use. These are defined by heuristics in Simon's work and are fleshed out in Levy and Murnane's work as a strong fund of knowledge, schema or conceptual knowledge about the domain in which the problem is situated, an ability to recognize meaningful patterns, and an ability to be metacognitive in analyzing the steps one is taking to a solution or in Simon's words to find a "fruitful path." Levy and Murnane site Simon in the New Division of Labor and clearly owe a depth of gratitude to Simon and his work.
However, what is so important to all of this is that human life's greatest endeavor is to understand the universe in which we live and to improve it in whatever ways we can. We know that we live in a universe of infinite complexity and that it bounds our rationality. Consequently, it is essential that we equip ourselves and our children with the ability to make the best rational choices in solving the problems that we will face in our future. This means teaching kids to be expert thinkers as opposed to workers on the assembly line. Simon's work helps provide essential supports to the structure of that ideal.
All of that is to say, that Hunter has written a fascinating book about the evolution of one man's ideas. Ideas that are important enough to touch all of our lives half a century later. Ideas that are essential for us to understand if we are interested in becoming active participants in improving the world in which we live.
Although Herbert Simon may not be a household name, his ideas certainly should be. In particular his concepts about problem solving and decision making speak to the way that we all engage in the world.
Hunter follows Simon's evolution from an administrative scientist interested in how people make decisions within the context of the organizations to which they belong to a cognitive and computer scientist interested in how experts solve problems within the context of the domain in which the problem is situated. What carries across his shifts in focus is the concepts of the science of choice (how people make rational choices) and the science of control (how our environment and specifically the organization systems around us determine what choices we have or are able to make). Simon bridged these two ideas with the concept of bounded rationality. To Simon we are neither perfectly rational beings with all of the information necessary to make good rational choices nor are we lab rats caught in a maze with completely determined possibilities. Instead we are capable of free-rational choice, but we are choices are bounded by the realities of our environment.
What is most compelling to me about this idea is how it relates specifically to my work around Frank Levy and Richard Murnane's ideas in The New Division of Labor. Levy and Murnane make the argument that the skills that people will need to be successful in our newly evolving information age can be defined as expert thinking and complex communication. Simon's work as detailed by Hunter complements the ideas about expert thinking by defining the "weak" skills that all problem solvers use. These are defined by heuristics in Simon's work and are fleshed out in Levy and Murnane's work as a strong fund of knowledge, schema or conceptual knowledge about the domain in which the problem is situated, an ability to recognize meaningful patterns, and an ability to be metacognitive in analyzing the steps one is taking to a solution or in Simon's words to find a "fruitful path." Levy and Murnane site Simon in the New Division of Labor and clearly owe a depth of gratitude to Simon and his work.
However, what is so important to all of this is that human life's greatest endeavor is to understand the universe in which we live and to improve it in whatever ways we can. We know that we live in a universe of infinite complexity and that it bounds our rationality. Consequently, it is essential that we equip ourselves and our children with the ability to make the best rational choices in solving the problems that we will face in our future. This means teaching kids to be expert thinkers as opposed to workers on the assembly line. Simon's work helps provide essential supports to the structure of that ideal.
All of that is to say, that Hunter has written a fascinating book about the evolution of one man's ideas. Ideas that are important enough to touch all of our lives half a century later. Ideas that are essential for us to understand if we are interested in becoming active participants in improving the world in which we live.
Displaying 1 of 1 review