Humean learning (how to learn).

David Hume's skeptical solution to the problem of induction was grounded in his belief that we learn by means of custom. We consider here how a form of reinforcement learning like custom may allow an agent to learn how to learn in other ways as well. Specifically, an agent may learn by simple reinfo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophical Studies Vol. 181; no. 1; pp. 281 - 298
Main Author: Barrett, Jeffrey A.
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Jan2024
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:David Hume's skeptical solution to the problem of induction was grounded in his belief that we learn by means of custom. We consider here how a form of reinforcement learning like custom may allow an agent to learn how to learn in other ways as well. Specifically, an agent may learn by simple reinforcement to adopt new forms of learning that work better than simple reinforcement in the context of specific tasks. We will consider how such a bootstrapping process may lead to a system that includes trial-and-error forms of learning like win-stay/lose-shift, probe and adjust, and simple reinforcement itself together with higher-rationality inferential tools.