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L'EREDITà DI HERBERT SIMON: TRA PSICOLOGIA COGNITIVA E SCIENZA POLITICA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2018

Donatella Campus

Introduzione

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Di Herbert Simon, scomparso nel febbraio scorso all'età di ottantaquattro anni, si può certamente dire che ha lasciato un segno tangibile in tutte le discipline di cui si è occupato nel corso della sua lunga e particolarmente versatile carriera scientifica. Anzi, seguendo l'esempio di Goodin (1999, 60), si dovrebbe forse parlare di diverse carriere parallele, di volta in volta teorico delle organizzazioni e scienziato politico, psicologo cognitivo, metodologo e filosofo della scienza, economista e studioso di intelligenza artificiale. Lo scopo di questa nota è, in particolare, esaminare il contributo di Simon a quella che egli stesso ha definito la sua «tribù di appartenenza», cioè la scienza politica. Più precisamente, il mio proposito è, da un lato, quello di analizzare l'apporto innovativo dato da Simon allo sviluppo della scienza politica; dall'altro, quello di ricostruire come le sue idee siano state recepite e sviluppate all'interno dei vari ambiti disciplinari.

Summary

Summary

This article analyzes the contribution made by Herbert Simon to political science. The author argues that the cornerstone of Simon's thought, the notion of bounded rationality, exerted a remarkable influence on several subfields of political science, especially on the theory of public administration and on the studies of electoral behavior. Two bodies of research that are now much influential in political science, new-institutionalism and political cognition, have both originated from Simon's reflections on how human beings go about solving problems and making decisions. Simon's notion of bounded rationality should be considered as one of the most radical challenge advanced against the imperialism of rational choice theory in the social sciences. It actually consists of an alternative paradigm focussing on people's cognitive processes and stressing the importance of detailed empirical research. Without understanding how people think and how they arrive at the decisions they make, Simon taught us, we cannot explain any economic, political, and social phenomenon. All things considered, this is Simon's major legacy.

Type
NOTE
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , August 2001 , pp. 291 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna 

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