Inter-Categorical Subobject Analysis
Abstract
We introduce a systematic way to use the subobject functor on any category to set up a framework for generalized topological and measure-theoretic notions and inferences. Concretely, we develop two connected calculi: 1. a fourfold calculus derived from notions of smallness and density that generalizes, among other things, topological density and measure-theoretic negligibility, 2. a twofold calculus that generalizes topological and measure-theoretic inference procedures. The resulting theory is distinguished in that it is inter-categorical in character: its definitions can be applied not just to describe smallness and density of subobjects in any category and classify morphisms by how they handle them, but also functors and natural transformations by how they transform them, somewhat like the theory of limits but with a simple and intuitive conceptual meaning that applies to each incarnation. We provide examples of these notions from many areas of mathematics and outline their unfolding throughout category theory as we add assumptions that bring them closer to classical settings, which we complete by generalizing the topological duality of open and closed subsets and outlining a possible framework for a categorical measure theory. Central to this interaction is the subobject 2-functor and the 2-category of upward-bounded preorders, so in the last part of the text we provide a study of their function. Concretely we derive representation theorems for this 2-functor and 2-category and a conjecture about how to generalize these theorems to n-categories.
Related
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BibTeX
@misc{prahauser2026intercategorical,
title = {{Inter-Categorical Subobject Analysis}},
author = {Alexander Prähauser},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.10930},
eprint = {2610.10930},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.10930},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Inter-Categorical Subobject Analysis
AU - Alexander Prähauser
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/14
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.10930
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.10930
AB - We introduce a systematic way to use the subobject functor on any category to set up a framework for generalized topological and measure-theoretic notions and inferences. Concretely, we develop two connected calculi: 1. a fourfold calculus derived from notions of smallness and density that generalizes, among other things, topological density and measure-theoretic negligibility, 2. a twofold calculus that generalizes topological and measure-theoretic inference procedures. The resulting theory is distinguished in that it is inter-categorical in character: its definitions can be applied not just to describe smallness and density of subobjects in any category and classify morphisms by how they handle them, but also functors and natural transformations by how they transform them, somewhat like the theory of limits but with a simple and intuitive conceptual meaning that applies to each incarnation. We provide examples of these notions from many areas of mathematics and outline their unfolding throughout category theory as we add assumptions that bring them closer to classical settings, which we complete by generalizing the topological duality of open and closed subsets and outlining a possible framework for a categorical measure theory. Central to this interaction is the subobject 2-functor and the 2-category of upward-bounded preorders, so in the last part of the text we provide a study of their function. Concretely we derive representation theorems for this 2-functor and 2-category and a conjecture about how to generalize these theorems to n-categories.
ER -