Abstract

The Theory of Contexts is a type-theoretic axiomatization which has been recently proposed by some of the authors for giving a metalogical account of the fundamental notions of variable and context as they appear in Higher Order Abstract Syntax. In this paper, we prove that this theory is consistent by building a model based on functor categories. By means of a suitable notion of forcing, we prove that this model validates Classical Higher Order Logic, the Theory of Contexts, and also (parametrised) structural induction and recursion principles over contexts. The approach we present in full detail should be useful also for reasoning on other models based on functor categories. Moreover, the construction could be adopted, and possibly generalized, also for validating other theories of names and binders. Contents 1 The object language 4 2 The metalanguage (Framework System #) 6 2.1 Syntax 6 2.2 Typing and logical judgements 7 2.3 Adequacy of the encoding 8 2.4 Remarks on the design of # 9 3 Category-theoretic preliminaries 11 4.1 The ambient categories 4.2 Interpreting types 16 4.3 Interpreting environments 18 4.4 Interpreting the typing judgement of terms 19 4.5 Interpreting logical judgements 21 is a model of # 22 5.1 Forcing 22 5.2 Characterisation of Leibniz equality 23 models logical axioms and rules 26 models the Theory of Contexts 27 6 Recursion 28 6.1 First-order recursion 28 6.2 Higher-order recursion 31 7 Induction 33 7.1 First-order induction 34 7.2 Higher-order induction 37 8 Connections with tripos theory 38 9 Related work 41 9.1 Semantics based on functor categories 41 9.2 Logics for nominal calculi 44 10 Conclusions 45 A Proofs 46 A.1 Proof of Proposition 4.2 46 A.2 Proof of Proposition 4.3 47 A.3 Proof of Theorem 5.1 48 A.4 Proof of...

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