Absolutely homotopy-cartesian squares

Abstract

We call a diagram D absolutely cartesian if F(D) is homotopy cartesian for all homotopy functors F. This is a sensible notion for diagrams in categories C where Goodwillie's calculus of functors may be set up for functors with domain C. We prove a classification theorem for absolutely cartesian squares of spaces and state a conjecture of the classification for higher dimensional cubes.