“The principle of bounded rationality [is] the capacity of the human mind for formulating and solving complex problems is very small compared with the size of the problems whose solution is required for objectively rational behavior in the real world — or even for a reasonable approximation to such objective rationality.”

— Herbert A. Simon, book Administrative Behavior

Variant: The principle of bounded rationality [is] the capacity of the human mind for formulating and solving complex problems is very small compared with the size of the problems whose solution is required for objectively rational behavior in the real world — or even for a reasonable approximation to such objective rationality.
Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 198.

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Herbert A. Simon58

American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and p… 1916–2001

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“The first consequence of the principle of bounded rationality is that the intended rationality of an actor requires him to construct a simplified model of the real situation in order to deal with it. He behaves rationally with respect to this model, and such behavior is not even approximately optimal with respect to the real world. To predict his behavior we must understand the way in which this simplified model is constructed, and its construction will certainly be related to his psychological properties as a perceiving, thinking, and learning animal.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Source: 1940s-1950s, Models of Man, 1957, p. 198; Cited in P. Slovic (1972, p. 2).

“It is impossible for the behavior of a single, isolated individual to reach a high degree of rationality. The number of alternatives he must explore is so great, the information he would need to evaluate them so vast that even an approximation to objective rationality is hard to conceive. Individual choice takes place in rationality is hard to conceive… Actual behavior falls short in at least three ways, of objective rationality:”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947

“The type of rationality we assume in economics — perfect, logical, deductive rationality — is extremely useful in generating solutions to theoretical problems. But it demands much of human behavior — much more in fact than it can usually deliver. If we were to imagine the vast collection of decision problems economic agents might conceivably deal with as a sea or an ocean, with the easier problems on top and more complicated ones at increasing depth, then deductive rationality would describe human behavior accurately only within a few feet of the surface. For example, the game Tic-Tac-Toe is simple, and we can readily find a perfectly rational, minimax solution to it. But we do not find rational “solutions” at the depth of Checkers; and certainly not at the still modest depths of Chess and Go.”

W. Brian Arthur (1946) American economist

Source: Inductive Reasoning and Bounded Rationality (The El Farol Problem) (1994), p. 1

“Rationality requires a choice among all possible alternative behaviors. In actual behavior, only a very few of all these possible alternatives come to mind.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 79; As cited in: Terry Winograd, ‎Fernando Flores (1986) Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. p. 21.

“The Catholic solution of our problem, of our unique vital problem, the problem of the immortality and eternal salvation of the soul, satisfies the will, and therefore satisfies life; but the attempt to rationalize it by means of a dogmatic theology fails to satisfy the reason. And reason has its exigencies as imperious as those of life. It is no use seeking to force ourselves to consider as super-rational what clearly appears to us to be contra-rational… Infallibility, a notion of Hellenic origin, is in its essence a rationalistic category.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), IV : The Essence of Catholicism

“As conceived in this book, economics is the science of rational choice in a world─our world─in which resources are limited in relation to human wants. The task of economics, so defined, is to explore the implications of assuming that man is a rational maximizer of his ends in life, his satisfactions─what we shall call his “self-interest.” Rational maximization should not be confused with conscious calculation. Economics is not a thoery about consciousness. Behavior is rational when it conforms to the model of rational choice, whatever the state of mind of the chooser.(…) Nor is perfect rationality assumed; rational-choice thoery allows us to assume that rationality is “bounded” because of human cognitive limitations, although another way to think of those limitations is as costs of absorbing and using information.”

Richard A. Posner (1939) United States federal judge

Source: Economic Analysis of Law (7th ed., 2007), Ch. 1: The Nature of Economic Reasoning

“All human behavior has a reason. All behavior is solving a problem.”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

Source: Disclosure

“A rational, humane solution—for Gelvri, as Elgran Vrai, believed rationality and humaneness tautologies, different names for the same thing.”

Michael Bishop (1945) American writer

Source: A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975), Chapter 14, “Denouement: Ascent to the Acropolis” (p. 266)

“The principles of the theory are derived, as are those of rational mechanics, from a very small number of primary facts”

Joseph Fourier book The Analytical Theory of Heat

Source: The Analytical Theory of Heat (1878), Ch. 1, p. 6
Context: If we consider further the manifold relations of this mathematical theory to civil uses and the technical arts, we shall recognize completely the extent of its applications. It is evident that it includes an entire series of distinct phenomena, and that the study of it cannot be omitted without losing a notable part of the science of nature.
The principles of the theory are derived, as are those of rational mechanics, from a very small number of primary facts, the causes of which are not considered by geometers, but which they admit as the results of common observations confirmed by all experiment.

“Hayek’s theory of evolutionary rationality shows how traditions and customs (those surrounding sexual relations, for example) might be reasonable solutions to complex social problems, even when, and especially when, no clear rational grounds can be provided to the individual for obeying them. These customs have been selected by the ‘‘invisible hand’’ of social reproduction, and societies that reject them will soon enter the condition of ‘‘maladaptation,’’ which is the normal prelude to extinction.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Hayek and conservatism", in Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek (2006)

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