Models of My Life

by Herbert A. Simon

Book Overview

In this candid and witty autobiography, Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon looks at his distinguished and varied career, continually asking himself whether (and how) what he learned as a scientist helps to explain other aspects of his life. A brilliant polymath in an age of increasing specialization, Simon is one of those rare scholars whose work defines fields of inquiry. Crossing disciplinary lines in half a dozen fields, Simon's story encompasses...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465046401
• ISBN13: 9780465046409
• Release Date: April 1991
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 415 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

excellent treatise on academic life

This is an excellent book for those who are considering life in academia on up through junior faculty. It should be required reading in all doctoral programs. This book provides unique insights into academic life, teaching philosophies, sparking and executing research, and the thought processes of senior faculty.

Another Great Reference

If you are a graduate student of management, this is must for you. Simon is an icon in the field of decision-making. Much of his work has inspired contiuned research in the field of decision-making. An extraordinary man with extraordinary vision.

Twentieth-Century Polymath

This intellectual autobiography is not just a chronology of the particulars of a great intellectual life. It is a wonderful opportunity to obtain a coherent overview of the views and contributions of one of the twentieth century's great thinkers. Simon - political scientist with his Ph.D. from University of Chicago, founder of the new and emerging area of artificial intelligence, cognitive psychologist, Cargegie-Mellon faculty member, Nobel laureate for economics (1978), and contributing philosopher of science - was no dilitante. This book, which is written is a very accessible style, reveals the integrity and evolution of his thinking, which can be extracted only with relative difficulty from his large and diverse literary corpus. It is also an inspiring book for any person with an active intellectual life in science or philosophy. Thomas J. Hickey, www.philsci.com

Learn the Why and How of a Distinguished Life

Herbert Simon's research contributes to human knowledge in many different areas, including economics, artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and organizational behavior. In each of the mentioned areas, his contributions are ranked among the most important and influential that even a scientist who focuses solely in one area finds hard to achieve. The testimony is the top awards that the community in each discipline bestowed upon him--the Nobel prize is only one of which. The secret of this interdisciplinary success is that he is, in his own word, a "monomaniac", studying only one thing--human decision process--for fifty years. The field of his own choosing is not bounded by usual academic disciplines, however, and he did study it from many different aspects, from the levels of individual cognition to organizational decisions, using tools as varied as mathematics, computer simulations, and human subjects.This book detailed his own account of the various aspects of his life, personal and professional, in a sincere and direct prose. From the childhood that undoubtedly helped set the tone for his later accomplishments, the way he managed and nurtured new academic thoughts that later grown into full-fledged disciplines (artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and, less prominently, bounded rationality), to the philosophy of working and living including brief exposures to familial life, we can learn tremendously from hise xperience, decisions, and actions. How could he achieve as much as he did? We can glean several lessons from his stories. He collaborated extensively. He learned a great deal from the outstanding individuals he respected. He had a love for truth and rigor in reasoning. An empiricist who firmly believed that any valid theory must be based on empirical facts, he did not hesitate to fight against widely held beliefs conflicting with facts. His work on bounded rationality which helped earn him the Nobel Prize is an outstanding case which his stubborn, and valid, arguments against mainstream theories brought a valuable alternative viewpoint to the world. Strong passion and the ability to break out of the mold and stand tall under storms are important characteristics exemplified by many past giants, including Galileo, Columbus, and Einstein.Not just a normal autobiography, but the story of a distinguished life we all can learn from.

Great Book, Great Man

Herbert Simon is an amazing figure in the world of science. A Noble winner in economics, a well-known contributor in psychology, and an expert in organizational study. People who know him always wonder how can he be so successful in different fields. By reading this book, you are able to get the light of the stories behind his success. As same as the papers he wrote for his research work, Simon's writings are always straightforward and intrigue you to think about the world we are living. When you read this book, it may change your thinking of this world. By reading his books, you would understand why simple human being will always have complex behavior. Though passed in Feb., 2001, Herbert Simon is an unforgettable figure to our lives.