On Equality of Objects in Categories in Constructive Type Theory

In this note we remark on the problem of equality of objects in categories formalized in Martin-L\"of's constructive type theory. A standard notion of category in this system is E-category, where no such equality is specified. The main observation here is that there is no general extension of E-categories to categories with equality on objects, unless the principle Uniqueness of Identity Proofs (UIP) holds. We also introduce the notion of an H-category, a variant of category with equality on objects, which makes it easy to compare to the notion of univalent category proposed for Univalent Type Theory by Ahrens, Kapulkin and Shulman.Comment: 7 page

Constructing categories and setoids of setoids in type theory

In this paper we consider the problem of building rich categories of setoids, in standard intensional Martin-L\"of type theory (MLTT), and in particular how to handle the problem of equality on objects in this context. Any (proof-irrelevant) family F of setoids over a setoid A gives rise to a category C(A, F) of setoids with objects A. We may regard the family F as a setoid of setoids, and a crucial issue in this article is to construct rich or large enough such families. Depending on closure conditions of F, the category C(A, F) has corresponding categorical constructions. We exemplify this with finite limits. A very large family F may be obtained from Aczel's model construction of CZF in type theory. It is proved that the category so obtained is isomorphic to the internal category of sets in this model. Set theory can thus establish (categorical) properties of C(A, F) which may be used in type theory. We also show that Aczel's model construction may be extended to include the elements of any setoid as atoms or urelements. As a byproduct we obtain a natural extension of CZF, adding atoms. This extension, CZFU, is validated by the extended model. The main theorems of the paper have been checked in the proof assistant Coq which is based on MLTT. A possible application of this development is to integrate set-theoretic and type-theoretic reasoning in proof assistants.Comment: 14 page

Experience Implementing a Performant Category-Theory Library in Coq

We describe our experience implementing a broad category-theory library in Coq. Category theory and computational performance are not usually mentioned in the same breath, but we have needed substantial engineering effort to teach Coq to cope with large categorical constructions without slowing proof script processing unacceptably. In this paper, we share the lessons we have learned about how to represent very abstract mathematical objects and arguments in Coq and how future proof assistants might be designed to better support such reasoning. One particular encoding trick to which we draw attention allows category-theoretic arguments involving duality to be internalized in Coq's logic with definitional equality. Ours may be the largest Coq development to date that uses the relatively new Coq version developed by homotopy type theorists, and we reflect on which new features were especially helpful.Comment: The final publication will be available at link.springer.com. This version includes a full bibliography which does not fit in the Springer version; other than the more complete references, this is the version submitted as a final copy to ITP 201

Quotient completion for the foundation of constructive mathematics

We apply some tools developed in categorical logic to give an abstract description of constructions used to formalize constructive mathematics in foundations based on intensional type theory. The key concept we employ is that of a Lawvere hyperdoctrine for which we describe a notion of quotient completion. That notion includes the exact completion on a category with weak finite limits as an instance as well as examples from type theory that fall apart from this.Comment: 32 page

Elementary quotient completion

We extend the notion of exact completion on a weakly lex category to elementary doctrines. We show how any such doctrine admits an elementary quotient completion, which freely adds effective quotients and extensional equality. We note that the elementary quotient completion can be obtained as the composite of two free constructions: one adds effective quotients, and the other forces extensionality of maps. We also prove that each construction preserves comprehensions

W-types in setoids

W-types and their categorical analogue, initial algebras for polynomial endofunctors, are an important tool in predicative systems to replace transfinite recursion on well-orderings. Current arguments to obtain W-types in quotient completions rely on assumptions, like Uniqueness of Identity Proofs, or on constructions that involve recursion into a universe, that limit their applicability to a specific setting. We present an argument, verified in Coq, that instead uses dependent W-types in the underlying type theory to construct W-types in the setoid model. The immediate advantage is to have a proof more type-theoretic in flavour, which directly uses recursion on the underlying W-type to prove initiality. Furthermore, taking place in intensional type theory and not requiring any recursion into a universe, it may be generalised to various categorical quotient completions, with the aim of finding a uniform construction of extensional W-types.Comment: 17 pages, formalised in Coq; v2: added reference to formalisatio