A categorical formulation of Kraus' paradox

We give a categorical formulation of Kraus' "magic trick" for recovering information from truncated types. Rather than type theory, we work in Van den Berg-Moerdijk path categories with a univalent universe, and rather than propositional truncation we work with arbitrary cofibrations, which includes truncation as a special case. We show, using Kraus' argument that any cofibration with homogeneous domain is a monomorphism. We give some simple concrete examples in groupoids to illustrate the interaction between homogeneous types, cofibrations and univalent fibrations.

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Publication Details

Journal
Logical Methods in Computer Science
Published
2026-10-27
DOI
https://doi.org/10.46298/lmcs-22(4:8)2026
Primary Topic
Logic, programming, and type systems
Type
article
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article

A categorical formulation of Kraus' paradox

Andrew Swan
Logical Methods in Computer Science
Logic, programming, and type systems
article

A categorical formulation of Kraus' paradox

Andrew Swan
article en

Abstract

We give a categorical formulation of Kraus' "magic trick" for recovering information from truncated types. Rather than type theory, we work in Van den Berg-Moerdijk path categories with a univalent universe, and rather than propositional truncation we work with arbitrary cofibrations, which includes truncation as a special case. We show, using Kraus' argument that any cofibration with homogeneous domain is a monomorphism. We give some simple concrete examples in groupoids to illustrate the interaction between homogeneous types, cofibrations and univalent fibrations.

Logical Methods in Computer ScienceVol. Volume 22, Issue 4
Openalex Percentile: Top 100%
Logic, programming, and type systems
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A categorical formulation of Kraus' paradox — Andrew Swan · Logical Methods in Computer Science (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS