English

Univalence without function extensionality

Logic in Computer Science 2026-05-04 v1 Logic

Abstract

It is a well-known theorem of homotopy type theory, originally due to Voevodsky, that function extensionality holds inside any univalent universe. We consider a weaker variant of the univalence axiom, asserting that the wild category formed by the universe is univalent, which we call categorical univalence. We show that categorical univalence does not imply function extensionality by an analysis of Von Glehn's polynomial model construction, which produces models of Martin-L\"of type theory that always refute function extensionality. We find in particular that when the base model has a univalent universe, its polynomial model has a universe that is categorically univalent but lacks function extensionality.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.00812,
  title  = {Univalence without function extensionality},
  author = {Evan Cavallo and Jonas Höfer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.00812},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

20 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:45:31.632Z