Contexts as Statements :
Context is " a generalisation of a collection of assumptions". [McCarthy]
This suggests that asserting the applicability of a context is equivalent to asserting the assumptions that it contains. Some of those assumptions may be explicitly stated.
In this respect, a context may assume some of the attributes of a statement: it may be regarded as true or false (or unknown) in the sense that the assumptions that it embodies are all true, or otherwise. Its truth (or otherwise) may depend upon the applicability of some other context. The kinds of metalogical operations that apply to statements (conjunction, implication, negation, etc.) could be usefully applied to contexts, treating a context as a kind of composite statement. It could even make sense to combine statements and contexts in metalogical expressions.
McCarthy states that treating contexts in this way , We can interpret it in the following way :
[Context] --rdfc:asserts--> [Statement]
meaning :
[Context] implies [Statement]
That is, if the set of assumptions, implicit and explicit, contained in a context are held to be true then, by implication, any statement asserted by the context must also be true.
The property
rdfc:assumes can be used to indicate explicitly stated
assumptions for a context. The assumption might be represented as a single
rdf:Statement, or as an rdfc:Context in
which case all of the statements that are explicitly assumed by the
object context are also assumed in the subject context.
[<rdfc:Context>] --rdfc:assumes--> [<rdf:Statement>] |
or
[<rdfc:Context>] --rdfc:assumes--> [<rdfc:Context>] |
By asserting the RDF statements assumed by one context, one might try to deduce that all statements asserted by that context are also true in the referencing context. But not all assumptions are necessarily stated explicitly, so this deduction is not generally valid. Thus, a distinction must be made between the explicit assumptions associated with a context, and the statements that are asserted to be true. Assertions in one context do not necessarily carry over with the explicitly stated assumptions