Multidisciplinary creativity: the case of Herbert A. Simon

In the twentieth century, no person epitomized more dramatically the “Renaissance mind” than Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001). In a working life spanning over 60 years, Simon made seminal contributions to administrative theory, axiomatic foundations of physics, economics, sociology, econometrics, cognitive psychology, logic of scientific discovery, and artificial intelligence. Simon’s life of the mind, thus, affords nothing less than a “laboratory” in which to observe and examine at close quarters the phenomenon of multidisciplinary creativity. In this paper, we attempt to shed some light on the nature of Simon’s creativity and the nature of his particular Renaissance mind. In particular, we have attempted here to articulate the cognitive style underlying Simon’s multidisciplinary creativity. © 2003 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.