Isoregular theories, accessible 2-categories, and free constructions

Abstract

We introduce isoregular theories, in which it is possible to express existential quantification up to unique isomorphism, as typically used to characterise category-theoretic universal constructions, such as limits. We then develop a functorial semantics for isoregular theories and prove that their 2-categories of models are accessible with flexible limits. We apply these results by showing that a number of 2-categories of interest in general category theory, categorical algebra, and categorical logic are models of isoregular theories, thereby establishing that they are accessible 2-categories with flexible limits and obtaining a number of new free constructions.