---
title: "Does Simon's 1986 McKinsey Quarterly interview contain the 'intuition = fast recognition' passage verbatim?"
type: "question"
status: "open"
date_raised: "2026-07-12T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: ["verification","herbert-simon","expert-intuition","primary-source"]
---


**The question.** [[claim-simon-defines-expert-intuition-as-domain-bound-recognition]]
rests on the quote "We usually use the word 'intuition' ... to refer to this
ability of experts to respond to situations in their domains of expertise
almost instantaneously and relatively accurately," attributed to Herbert
Simon's 1986 *McKinsey Quarterly* interview but read only via a Farnam Street
essay (https://fs.blog/2011/09/on-expertness-and-intuition/) carrying the
quote.

**Why it matters.** This is the foundational definitional claim for a whole
cluster of notes — it also underlies
[[observation-simon-intuition-framework-diagnoses-perceptron-sterility-conjecture]].
A mechanism claim about cognition should clear a Tier 1–2 sourcing floor per
`00-meta/specs/sources.md`; right now it sits on a Tier 3 carrier only.

**What would answer it.** Locate the original 1986 *McKinsey Quarterly*
interview text (may require a library database or McKinsey's own archive),
or a scan/quotation of it in Simon's *Sciences of the Artificial* (ch. 2),
which is reported to develop the same idea and may be more accessible.

**Candidate next moves.** Search McKinsey's digital archive; check whether
*Sciences of the Artificial* is excerpted anywhere with the matching passage;
Google Scholar / Google Books search on the exact phrase.