The art of thinking · Mental models as thinking tools
Latticework of mental models
Also known as: Latticework of models, Worldly wisdom
In the decision-making literature, a latticework of mental models is Charlie Munger’s image for a broad set of models from many disciplines that a person combines to understand problems, instead of relying on the models of a single discipline; he set it out in his talk “A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom” at the USC Marshall School of Business on April 14, 1994.
- Thinking models
- Problem solving
In one sentence
Charlie Munger’s 1994 image for combining models from many disciplines to understand problems, instead of relying on one discipline’s models.
Example
A documentation lead looks at a confusing product release with several models at once: first principles (what is actually true), systems thinking (where the boundaries are) and risk thinking (what can go wrong).
Explained in context
Context cards connect this term with others to answer one question. Also in British English and German.
How it applies
- Munger's argument: Isolated facts are useless unless they hang together on a latticework of theory, and anyone with only one or two models bends reality to fit them ("to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail"). He counted the models of hard science and engineering among the most reliable.
- The mental-model literature: The image was picked up by Robert Hagstrom (Investing: The Last Liberal Art, 2000) and by Shane Parrish's Farnam Street, whose series The Great Mental Models (volume 1, 2019) lists first principles thinking as one general thinking concept among others.
- Technical documentation: A set of thinking models for writers is a latticework in this sense: each model looks at the same subject from another angle, and together they lead to the documentation decision.
How to read this pool
Entries, context cards and transitional topics
The art of thinking explains ways of thinking — where a method comes from, what it asks of you and how it was adapted later. You meet four kinds of content here, each with its own job:
- Glossary entry
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- Context card of the art of thinking
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- Transitional topicBridges both pools
- A context card that bridges both pools: it shows how a way of thinking was adapted into documentation, analysis or quality practice. It sits with the reference context cards and is marked as transitional wherever it appears.
- Reference entry or context card
- Belongs to the Glossary & Norms Space on regulation, norms and engineering. Entries here link to one only where a method is also an established tool of documentation or quality work, such as the five whys or a user’s mental model.