OLDaily

Theories of Meaning
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019/07/03

Another newly revised article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This article is relevant because so many educators use phrases like 'making meaning' without really having a deeper understanding of what they could be saying with that phrase. As someone with a background in these theories (and yes, I deserve your sympathy) it has always perplexed me that this could be what it is that educators think students are doing when they are learning. Students are at best creating (if they create anything) an interpretation of some model or representation when they learn, and not meaning itself. But all this is an artifice anyways; meaning is something societies create, and people just learn how to use the words one way or another.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Fallacies (SEP)
Hans Hansen, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019/07/03

As the author of Stephen's Guide to the Logical Fallacies (firmly in the Copi tradition and very much in need of a new edition) I have had a long-standing interest in fallacies. I define a fallacy simply as 'a common error of reasoning' and eschew the much deeper debate over this definition that appears to be very much the preoccupation of this SEP article. I think we'll find that for each legitimate sort of reasoning there will be a set of accompanying fallacies. It's useful to know about fallacies because they provide a bridge into knowing how to reason well. Image: THE.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Public libraries battle publishers over digital content
CBC News, 2019/07/03

This is why I hold publishers in such low esteem. I could understand why they might restrict readership of a library-owned ebook to one reader at a time - it replicates the conditions of a physical book. But that wasn't enough. This story reports on a publisher of popular books, Hachette books, will now require that the license be repurchased every two years. So a library can never build a collection over time, limiting the selection it can offer, and reducing the service it can offer to the public. This is a video, but there are closed captions so you can watch/read it without disturbing anyone.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]