Typed Knowledge over Constructive Institutions

Abstract

Type theories designed for mathematics or program verification need only that a proposition holds; proof irrelevance in conversion erases, at the kernel level, how a claim was established. A persistent knowledge store, by contrast, must retain that record: who established a claim, by which derivation or external tool, and under which assumptions. This volume presents the theory of Eigenius---a store of typed knowledge over constructive institutions---and develops its metatheory from that requirement. The kernel theory is a dependent type theory with cumulative universes, an impredicative universe of propositions, inductive families, and an intensional identity type. Proof irrelevance is an axiom with an explicit witness rather than a conversion rule, so proofs of a proposition are provably equal yet remain distinct terms. Definitional equality is joinability under an orthogonal rewriting system---confluent, injective on type formers, and decidable by a type-free test---while a separate subsumption judgment covers universe cumulativity, codomain-covariant function types, and declared class inclusions. We prove consistency via a set-theoretic model; develop a justification logic over the kernel's propositions to track evidence and support; organize environments as an institution so that store extensions are signature morphisms and external verdicts enter via comorphisms; formulate a typed knowledge-graph theory with records, classes, and refinements; and prove the correctness of conversion, normalization by evaluation, and bidirectional type checking relative to termination. A Lean 4 formalization accompanies the volume.