Empiricism in Herbert Simon: “Administrative Behavior” within the evolution of the Models of Bounded and Procedural Rationality

Vol. 37 No. 4 (2017)

Oct-Dec / 2017
Published February 26, 2020
PDF-English
PDF-English

How to Cite

Hortal, Alejandro. 2017. “Empiricism in Herbert Simon: ‘Administrative Behavior’ Within the Evolution of the Models of Bounded and Procedural Rationality”. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 37 (4):719-33. https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-31572017v37n04a04.

Empiricism in Herbert Simon: “Administrative Behavior” within the evolution of the Models of Bounded and Procedural Rationality

Alejandro Hortal
Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Departmento de Lógica, Historia y Filosofía de la Ciencia, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED).
Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 37 No. 4 (2017), Oct-Dec / 2017, Pages 719-733

Abstract

This paper contextualizes Simon’s book, Administrative Behavior, within the evolution of his ideas arguing, contrary to what some have posited, that the common element that unites this book with the rest of Simon’s work is not the criticism of the classical approach, but an epistemological frame, based on an empirical methodology. This empiricism is the element that remained constant during his career and led him to introduce psychological factors when explaining the behavior of economic agents under his models of bounded and procedural rationality.

JEL Classification: A11; D01; B52; B31; D21.


Keywords: Herbert A. Simon bounded rationality procederam rationality empiricism.