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Non-Reducibility of a 2-Categorical Negation to Elementary Topos Semantics

  • Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
  • European Organization for Nuclear Research
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Abstract

This paper introduces a minimal strict 2-categorical structure intended to formalize a notion of "dialectical negation" as a structural transformation rather than a truth-functional operation. We define a class of 2-categories equipped with non-invertible 2-cells generating endomorphisms that fail naturality with respect to 1-categorical composition. We study the relationship between this structure and classical topos-theoretic logic. Our main result shows that there is no structure-preserving 2-functor from the proposed dialectical 2-category into any elementary topos that preserves finite limits, exponentials, and subobject classifiers. This establishes a non-reducibility theorem with respect to standard categorical semantics of logic. We further show that the structure is essentially 2-categorical: any reduction to a 1-category necessarily collapses the distinguishing 2-cell data, thereby losing the generative behavior of the negation operation. The results are motivated by higher-categorical perspectives on logic as developed in topos theory and higher topos theory (Lawvere, Johnstone, Lurie), and aim to clarify the boundary between 1-categorical logical operations and genuinely higher-categorical transformations.

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Publication details

DOI
10.5281/zenodo.19758444
OpenAlex
W7155647312
Document type
preprint
Language
EN
Source
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
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