Univalent foundations

Univalent foundations are an approach to the foundations of mathematics in which mathematical structures are built out of objects called types. Types in univalent foundations do not correspond exactly to anything in set-theoretic foundations, but they may be thought of as spaces, with equal types corresponding to homotopy equivalent spaces and with equal elements of a type corresponding to points of a space connected by a path. Univalent foundations are inspired both by the old Platonic ideas of Hermann Grassmann and Georg Cantor and by "categorical" mathematics in the style of Alexander Grothendieck. Univalent foundations depart from (although are also compatible with) the use of classical predicate logic as the underlying formal deduction system, replacing it, at the moment, with a version of Martin-Löf type theory. The development of univalent foundations is closely related to the development of homotopy type theory.

Univalent foundations are compatible with structuralism, if an appropriate (i.e., categorical) notion of mathematical structure is adopted.[1]

  1. ^ Awodey, Steve (2014). "Structuralism, Invariance, and Univalence" (PDF). Philosophia Mathematica. 22 (1): 1–11. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.691.8113. doi:10.1093/philmat/nkt030.

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