Argument
Heuristic
Overview
A heuristic or heuristic technique (problem solving, mental shortcut, rule of thumb) is any approach to problem solving that employs a pragmatic method that is not necessarily optimized, perfected, or rationalized, but is nevertheless "good enough" as an approximation or attribute substitution. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision.
Heuristic reasoning is often based on induction, or on analogy ... Induction is the process of discovering general laws ... Induction tries to find regularity and coherence ... Its most conspicuous instruments are generalization, specialization, analogy. [...] Heuristic discusses human behavior in the face of problems [... that have been] preserved in the wisdom of proverbs.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
On the other hand, the relations which science presents are causal relations; and, when properly taught, are understood as such. While language familiarises with non-rational relations, science familiarises with rational relations. While the one exercises memory only, the other exercises both memory and understanding.
Herbert Spencer, Essays on education and kindred subjects
States what Heuristic is; the author is tied to Heuristic in the knowledge graph.
In pleonasms, which are comparatively prevalent among the uneducated, the same essential structure is seen; as, for instance, in--"The men, they were there." Again, the old possessive case--"The king, his crown," conforms to the like order of thought. Moreover, the fact that the indirect mode is called the natural one, implies that it is the one spontaneously employed by the common people: that is--the one easiest…
Herbert Spencer, The Philosophy of Style
States what Heuristic is; the author is tied to Heuristic in the knowledge graph.
Expressed in terms of the attitude of the individual the traits of good method are straightforwardness, flexible intellectual interest or open-minded will to learn, integrity of purpose, and acceptance of responsibility for the consequences of one's activity including thought. 1 This point is developed below in a discussion of what are termed psychological and logical methods respectively. See p. 219.
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
States what Heuristic is.
Philosophers who discussed Heuristic
Related ideas
- Analysis
- Artificial intelligence
- Herbert A. Simon
- Problem solving
- The Logic of Scientific Discovery
- Jurisprudence
- Karl Popper
- Law
- Psychology
- Plato
- Text (literary theory)
- Herbert Spencer
- Set (mathematics)
- Law and economics
- Justification (epistemology)
- Utopia
- Embodied cognition
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Noun
- Imre Lakatos
- Cognitive bias
- Oxford University Press
- Bayesian inference
- Meno
Place in the tradition
Part of Africana philosophy.