Semantic Web For The Humanities / quote 2 of 2
Contextual knowledge in the humanities
Humanities ontologies require dynamic concept formalizations instead of static ones, especially for contested, open-textured or ambiguous concepts. The definition of such concepts needs to be dynamically built depending on their contexts. Examples of contextual knowledge are the time when and the space where the concept occurs, subjective opinions on the concept, or domain expert statements about the concept. Multiple contradictory definitions may need to coexist in one ontology.
Concept drift and knowledge from contexts are closely related. Since the con- text of a concept often changes over time, a definition of concept drift based on the varying properties in contexts can be established.