[rdfweb-dev] Re: Parsing FOAF in perl?

[Ian Davis]

On Thursday, 12 December 2002 at 10:03, Jan Grant wrote:
> How can there be logical contradictions in RDF documents? Can you give
> an example, please?

The RDF model doesn't allow for logical contradictions, but then my
understanding is that RDF is not a logic language. It does allow me to
define vocabularies that infer logic relations.

One example is within DAML/OIL[1]. I can declare that a class is disjoint
with another class (e.g. the class of Men are disjoint from the class
of Women). If I encounter two models one of which claims Ian Davis is
an instance of Man, the other claims Ian Davis is an instance of Woman
then I'd consider that a logical contradiction.

I guess I'm thinking at a layer somewhere above RDF.


-- Ian

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/daml+oil-reference