Deductive Learning [and Discussion]

A non-technical discussion of a new approach to the problem of concept learning in the context of artificial devices is given. Learning is viewed as a process of acquiring a program for recognizing a concept from an environment that does not reveal an explicit description of the program but only suggests it by such means as identifying positive examples of it. The proposed model makes possible a study of learning that reconciles three requirements: the classes of concepts that can be learnt are relevant for general purpose knowledge; they can be characterized; the process of learning them is computationally feasible.