Cognitive Science & Organisational Theory

Herbert Simon

1916–2001 · Cognitive Science & Organisational Theory

The Polymath Who Showed Rationality Has Limits

Simon is for the person who has noticed that real decisions are never made with complete information — and that "good enough" is not laziness but the only rational response to a world too complex to optimise. You've probably felt the impossibility of finding the best option and settled for the first acceptable one — then felt vaguely guilty about it. Simon showed that this is not a failure of rationality but rationality working correctly within human limits. He called it "satisficing" and won a Nobel Prize for proving that the model of perfectly rational decision-making is a fiction.

bounded rationalitysatisficing vs optimisingthe architecture of complexityartificial intelligence foundationsdecision-making under limits

Where to Start Reading

The Sciences of the Artificial

Simon's most elegant book — on how designed systems (organisations, economies, software) differ from natural ones. Short, lucid, and full of ideas that haven't been absorbed yet. The chapter on the architecture of complexity is a masterpiece.

Administrative Behavior

Simon's foundational work on how decisions actually get made in organisations. The origin of bounded rationality and satisficing. More academic than Sciences of the Artificial but the ideas are sharper in their original context.

Models of My Life

Simon's autobiography — a polymath reflecting on a career that spanned political science, computer science, psychology, and economics. The most human way into an intimidatingly wide body of work.

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

Related Thinkers

Classical Philosophy

Plato

428–348 BC

The Inventor of the Examined Life

Stoic Philosophy

Marcus Aurelius

121–180 AD

The Private Notebook of an Emperor

Rationalist Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza

1632–1677

The Geometer of Human Freedom