This paper will require careful reading, but it really is a very nice analysis of four very different approaches to defining meaning in language or logic. Why is this important? Glad you asked. The current project of defining learning objects with a standardized vocabulary presupposes a traditional Tarski-style approach to semantics. This approach presupposes that there is (to gloss it a bit) one, and only one, world and this world is directly reflected in the meaning and truth of our statements. But if knowledge (and learning) is constructed, or if knowledge (and learning) is a social or cultural phenomenon, then our semantics change, and so, therefore, does our approach to defining learning objects. My objection to the 'one standard' is based in my objection to Tarski semantics, and my approach to a better metadata is grounded in a desire to include both socially defined (Frege's 'sense') and personally defined (or 'constructed') knowledge in our overall picture.
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