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TheoremStatement: Literature-sourcedProof: AI-adaptedprecheck passjudge pass (gpt-5.6-terra)audited 2026-09-01
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A locally cartesian closed category has pullbacks, and with a terminal object it has all finite limits

Statement

Every locally cartesian closed category has pullbacks. If it also has a terminal object, then it has all finite limits.

Facts & Assumptions

Given: A locally cartesian closed category C, and optionally a terminal object 1.

[L1]

Every slice C/X is cartesian closed, hence has binary products (Locally cartesian closed category).

[L2]

A pullback of u:AX and v:BX is a universal square over X (Pullbacks and pushouts as limits and colimits of cospans and spans).

[L3]

A terminal object is an object receiving a unique map from every object (Initial object, terminal object, and zero object).

Proof

technique · direct
1.1

Fix arrows u:AX and v:BX. Since C/X is cartesian closed by [L1], it has a binary product (p:PX) of those two slice objects. Its projections are morphisms PA and PB over X, and the product universal property in the slice is exactly the pullback universal property of [L2]. So C has pullbacks.

givenL1L2
2.1

Now assume 1 is terminal. A pullback with codomain 1 is an ordinary binary product, because by [L3] every object has a unique map to 1. Thus step 1.1 gives binary products in C, and the given object 1 is terminal.

step 1.1L3
3.1

A category with pullbacks and a terminal object has all finite limits: binary products come from step 2.1, and equalizers are pullbacks of the diagonal against a pair of parallel arrows. Hence C has all finite limits.

step 2.1L2algebra
4.1

Therefore every locally cartesian closed category has pullbacks, and with a terminal object it has all finite limits.

step 1.1step 3.1

Depends on

Used by

Dependency tree · two levels

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Sources