arXiv:2506.22236stat.OTcs.LG2025-06

从统计学史与哲学视角重思机器学习的推理标准。

A Plea for History and Philosophy of Statistics and Machine Learning

  • 追溯奈曼-皮尔逊1936年工作,提出'可达成主义'原则
  • 揭示频率学派与机器学习共享的隐含认识论基础
  • 适合关注AI哲学、统计思想史的研究者阅读

统计学与机器学习的历史和哲学融合始于哈金(1975)、进一步由哈金(1990)、梅奥(1996)和扎贝尔(2005)推进,但未持续发展。如今,人工智能的成功主要依赖机器学习,而该领域与统计学有着共同的历史渊源,两者边界日益模糊。本文以一个形式认识论中的哲学观点为例,其根源可追溯至奈曼与皮尔逊1936年的研究(继1933年经典之后)。由此提出一种认识论原则——可达成主义:非演绎推理方法的正确评估标准不应固定,而应取决于具体问题情境下的可实现性。这一原则在频率学派统计学与机器学习实践中均有体现。同时,在方法论层面,实现了历史与科学哲学及形式认识论的整合。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

The integration of the history and philosophy of statistics was initiated at least by Hacking (1975) and advanced by Hacking (1990), Mayo (1996), and Zabell (2005), but it has not received sustained follow-up. Yet such integration is more urgent than ever, as the recent success of artificial intelligence has been driven largely by machine learning -- a field historically developed alongside statistics. Today, the boundary between statistics and machine learning is increasingly blurred. What we now need is integration, twice over: of history and philosophy, and of two fields they engage -- statistics and machine learning. I present a case study of a philosophical idea in machine learning (and in formal epistemology) whose root can be traced back to an often under-appreciated insight in Neyman and Pearson's 1936 work (a follow-up to their 1933 classic). This leads to the articulation of an epistemological principle -- largely implicit in, but shared by, the practices of frequentist statistics and machine learning -- which I call achievabilism: the thesis that the correct standard for assessing non-deductive inference methods should not be fixed, but should instead be sensitive to what is achievable in specific problem contexts. Another integration also emerges at the level of methodology, combining two ends of the philosophy of science spectrum: history and philosophy of science on the one hand, and formal epistemology on the other hand.

统计哲学机器学习认识论历史

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