ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a discussion of bounded rationality as the condition limiting what and how learning occurs. It introduces the concepts of consensual knowledge as a constituent of learning and of epistemic communities as agents of learning. The chapter shows why most familiar notions of adaptation and learning are not appropriate guides to the discussion of foreign policy learning by government bureaucracies. Adaptation and learning, in the literature on biological and cultural evolution, are synonyms. Both are tied up with survival and stability. Adaptation is the ability to change one's behavior so as to meet challenges in the form of new demands without having to revaluate one's entire program and the reasoning on which that program depends for its legitimacy. Adaptation is the ability to change one's behavior so as to meet challenges in the form of new demands without having to revaluate one's entire program and the reasoning on which that program depends for its legitimacy.
