Consequences of inconsistency in formal logic: doesn’t that ruin the Semantic Web?
The problem referred to by this question is the fact that, in formal logic, if there is an inconsitency somewhere, then it is possible to draw all conclusions and their negations. The issue is whether this would not create major difficulties on the Semantic Web. “Inference” in terms of the Semantic Web can be characterized by discovering new relationships (as explained in the answer of another question). These inferences are mostly done within a restricted, “guarded” subset of first order logic. Usually, reasoning on the Semantic Web does not use the full power of first order (or higher order) logic, and therefore avoids some of the dangerous issues that can come from an inferred inconsistency. In other words, in practice, no major difficulties can be expected.
