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In Borceux's Handbook of Categorical Algebra Volume 1, exercise 8.4.2 defines an internal distributor in a category $\mathcal{C}$ with finite limits and coequalizers as an internal base-valued functor $\bf{\mathcal{B}^{op}}\times\bf{\mathcal{A}}\rightarrow \mathcal{C}$ and asks you to define the composite of two such internal distributors.

In Johnstone's Sketches of an Elephant, internal profunctors are defined similarly in section B2.7, with the only difference being that he assumes that our base category $\mathcal{C}$ has internal products, coequalizers of reflexive pairs, and that those are stable under pullback (i.e., they are universal). This assumption is used explicitly in the construction.

My question then is, is it possible to compose internal distributors under Borceux's conditions and I'm just not seeing it or is this a mistake?

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  • $\begingroup$ Like you, I can’t see how to do it without the extra stability assumption. I can’t see any way to formally back this up enough to justify a negative answer, though, so just commenting as a second opinion. $\endgroup$ Commented May 6, 2017 at 8:49
  • $\begingroup$ I'm pretty sure that stability is necessary. One good place to look for a counterexample would be $\mathcal{C}=\mathrm{Cat}$, cf ncatlab.org/nlab/show/double+profunctor $\endgroup$ Commented May 6, 2017 at 16:14

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