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An opaque context is a linguistic context in which it is not possible to substitute co-referential terms while guaranteeing the preservation of truth values.

The term is used in philosophical theories of reference, and is to be contrasted with "transparent context". For example:

• Opacity: "Mary knows that Cicero is a great orator" is "referentially opaque"; although Cicero was also called Tully, we can't simply substitute "Tully" for "Cicero" in this context ("Mary knows that Tully is a great orator"), for Mary might not know that Tully was Cicero.
• Transparency: "Cicero was a Roman orator" is "referentially transparent"; there is no problem substituting "Tully" here: "Tully was a Roman orator".

[edit] See also

• Masked man fallacy
• Transitivity of identityfr:Contexte opaque