Talk:Herbert A. Simon

Undoing phrases about Simon being
A lot of people have been trying to undo the phrase about Simon being, by training, a political scientist. It strikes me that if he was trained in political science and had a Ph.D. in political scientist, then he was a political scientist. If he later went on to do research in computer science, then that makes him a polymath. Why would you eliminate the specificity of this man being a political scientist? Perhaps I should go through and change all mentions of economists who worked in other fields to "Social Scientist"?

This article is a good tribute to an amazing scholar, and innovator.But as a person from a different academic field, I have been deeply influenced by his book ADMINISTRATIVE BEHAVIOR. His treatment of bounded rationality has over many years been a beacon for me.I would like to develop an additional section for this article summarizing this work. Unfortunately I was not able to follow Professor Simon into his subsequent work on computer programming and computer science. Perhaps someone else would like to take up following this theme into those areas.

I fail to see why his having been a political scientist implies that he was not also a computer scientist. He spent most of his time and effort on computer science and made major contributions to it. My objection here is to the disambiguation page, which doesn't mention it!!

68.220.6.164 03:22, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I verified the 'land tax' comment at: http://diva.library.cmu.edu/webapp/simon/content_frame.jsp?Index=3&SB=S

I have read the TAG about the article on Administrative Behavior. I am now a little more familiar with WP MoS and the How to Edit pages, and WP format. Probably I can improve a variety of things including the length, and style of presenting content. It might take a while. Shall I proceed?68.220.36.16 19:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Without objections, I revised Decisions, and officially logged in.Islandsage 22:06, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Any idea where the first quotation comes from ("Most producers are employees...")? Would have been a good idea to name the source of a quotation... --130.60.68.45 15:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

In the quote's section the line about attention is bold faced with no reason. (I am sorry I might be doing this wrong. It's my first time editing.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.181.51.173 (talk) 23:12, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Too many categories
Too many categories in this article : would it be possible to reduce to the more important ? Chrisdel 07:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * You may find the following article helpful: WP:CG. Compared to pages of other notable persons (for example Donald Knuth), the Herbert Simon page does not have "too many" categories. Roger Hui 18:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the guideline. Maybe then an Article series boxes (or navigational templates) would be useful ? Chrisdel 19:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

What are "Article series boxes (or navigational templates)"? Roger Hui 19:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Follow the guideline link above : on the bottom of the page there is this link Categories, lists, and series boxes, see paragraph "Article series boxes". Rgds. Chrisdel 03:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest including in the external links the site History of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science, BOOK VIII: Herbert Simon - with free downloads. 66.240.59.231 20:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)Thomas J. Hickey

Hi. I think it's not right to write that Simon was a psychologist. He is more like a political expert, economist, informatician, ... Maybe we should add those elements. ≈

his famous quote
i think simon is most famous to the gen public for his quote, if something can't go on forever it won't

can someone source this and put it in ?65.220.64.105 (talk) 18:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

http://portalcontent.london.edu/news/alumni/Andrew_Scott_Global_Macroeconomic_Trends.pdf --Will this work?

also, he should be put in the category of 'polymaths' Adamaero (talk) 02:52, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

The first statement above under the heading "his famous quote" is incorrectly assigned to Herbert Simon. If you follow the link in the third offering above, you will find that the quote "if something can't go on forever, it won't" is attributed to Herbert Stein. There are similarities in their professional and personal lives: they were both born in 1916, both were active in the field of economics so they probably knew each other. Herbert Stein may be most famous for this quote but Herbert Simon is famous for other things, one of which is coining the word "satisfice". Barbsimonmaine (talk) 02:30, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

influenced by
He has influenced lots of people. I guess we limit what is in his page. On the Dixon thing, he said "I would like to acknowledge my debt to the writings of Herbert Simon: whilst I have not referenced his works explicitly or in detail, his ideas were formative in my education and have clearly influenced the way I look at things. " (http://huwdixon.org/SurfingEconomics/chapter8.pdf). Dossi too. maybe they should be there? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.150.33 (talk) 23:34, 1 December 2012 (UTC)


 * No, we don't have to limit anything. The infobox is a summary of what's in the article. If it's not put into the article, it shouldn't be put in the infobox. Simple. Some of this may belong in the articles of the influenced, rather than here, especially if the influence is not direct. Yworo (talk) 01:04, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Images of Herbert A. Simon:

Do we need to dehumanize the man? Is there not room in this article for a photograph? Or, if we don't use photographs; than for those that might be interested there are two portraits of Simon - the first painted in 1986 and the second in 1987 for his official portrait for Carnegie Mellon University by Richard Rappaport that can be found in Richard Rappaport Wikimedia Commons. As Herbert Simon had befriended me since 1965, my junior year at the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University, these works have an autobiographical dimension for both sitter and artist that represents Simon's generosity and supportive kindness to the younger people who have crossed his path. - Richard Rappaport, February 7, 2014 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.60.19.64 (talk) 12:55, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Study of decision-making edit
This section is missing a detailed explanation of what drove Herbert Simon to study decision-making. Suggested addition: Simon has been critical of traditional economics’ elementary understanding of decision-making, and argues it ‘is too quick to build an idealistic, unrealistic picture of the decision-making process and then prescribe on the basis of such unrealistic picture’(https://www.ubs.com/microsites/nobel-perspectives/en/herbert-simon.html). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Whileworth (talk • contribs) 10:25, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It is a good idea to add such a discussion.Limit-theorem (talk) 11:23, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

The picture of H.A. Simon
I agree with the previous commentators,please use a photograph.I was surprised to see a drawn picture of Herbert A. Simon.

I agree with the other commentator, the use of that picture is indulgent. Unless really specified by his family or one of his famous secretaries, I'd strongly suggest changing it. while it notes it was commissioned by Herb, as a student of his indirectly, I am less comfortabel sending folks to this entry because of this portrait. could be used inline perhaps, but it dos not really indicate him, IMHO. -not harry bovik — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.39.43.42 (talk) 16:33, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I think the article should have a photograph of Herbert A. Simon. The usage of a drawn picture seems to be related to the missing photograph of John F. Muth. What is the next step? To replace Franco Modigliani's picture with Spiderman? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dancing Mickey Mouse (talk • contribs) 21:06, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, artists of the current time are not very good at representation.96.248.101.32 (talk) 04:10, 22 February 2018 (UTC)DeAndruw Carter
 * I agree. We need a real picture.Limit-theorem (talk) 08:39, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

No Mention of his Parable of the Watchmakers?
WP appears to completely lack coverage of Tempus and Hora. They have their own article at https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_two_watchmakers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.78.82.8 (talk) 17:14, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

External links modified
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Doctoral advisor?
If Henry Schultz died in 1938 as his Wikipedia page states, he cannot have signed Herb Simon’s 1943 PhD thesis. - Shrisha Rao 2406:7400:75:430C:ACF8:84CD:141A:13FC (talk) 19:52, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Management
— Assignment last updated by LFCochran (talk) 14:48, 31 October 2023 (UTC)