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A Model for the Science of Decision

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

James Bates
James Bates*
Affiliation:
Military Operations Research Division Lockheed Aircraft Corporation
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Extract

This paper attempts to present a formal model for the science of decision where “science of decision” is restricted to the work that has been done in formal models and not those aspects connected with the gathering of empirical data and development of measures for the data. One of the difficulties in treating such a phenomenon as decision-making has been to give a precise statement of the problem. The literature of numerous fields is filled with models and talk about models where various restrictions are imposed. Among all of these it seems that the formalistic or logical, game-theoretic, and statistical decision function conceptual schemas have solved some decision problems largely due to the fact that they could give a mathematical formulation of the problem and its solution. The result is that in these three fields the decision problem can be fed into a computer which grinds out an answer for each particular set of parameters.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , October 1954 , pp. 326 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1954

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank G. A. Korn of Military Operations Research Division of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation for his encouragement and criticism in the development of this paper. Of course, he is not to be held responsible for the concepts presented.

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