Probability and Fuzziness – Echoes from 30 Years Back

Introduction

In 1977 as a (relatively) young assistant professor I was invited to deliver a tutorial on fuzzy sets in decision making at the meeting on subjective probability, utility and decision making (SPUDM) in Warsaw. Apparently, the well-known Polish social psychologist and methodologist Maria Nowakowska with whom I had been in correspondence for some years had suggested my name to the local organizers of the meeting. The invitation was naturally a great honor to me although the meaning of the word “tutorial” was not known to me at the time. It turned out that I was to give a plenary lecture to an international audience of distinguished decision analysts, psychologists, methodologists and management scientists. In those days the fuzzy systems were not considered standard background knowledge of people working on individual decision making. Sometimes I doubt that times have changed much in this regard.