> Although I can see formal proofs that Joyal-equivalence is a proposition (or h-proposition), I am still trying to find the best formal proof that uncovers the essence of this fact. This is why I asked the question of were this formulation of equivalence comes from.
Like André suggested, I feel the nicest viewpoint is the fact that the “free (∞,1)-category on a Joyal-equivalence” is contractible. At least in terms of intuition, the conceptually clearest argument I know for that is as follows.
Look at the *∞-groupoidification* of this free (∞,1)-category, considered as a space. This is a cell complex which we can easily picture: two points x, y, three paths f, g, g' between x and y, and 2-cells giving homotopies f ~ g, f ~ g'. It’s very clear geometrically that this is contractible.
But — the “free (∞,1)-category on a Joyal equivalence” is already an ∞-groupoid — and ∞-groupoidification is idempotent, since groupoids are a full subcategory. So the original (∞,1)-category is equivalent to its groupoidification, so is contractible.
The same approach works for seeing why half-adjoint equivalences are good, but non-adjoint and bi-adjoint equivalences are not. So as regards intuition, I think this is very nice. However, I suspect that if one looks at all the work that goes into setting up the framework needed, then somewhere one will have already used some form of “equivalence is a proposition”. So this is perhaps a little unsatisfactory formally, as it (a) needs a lot of background, and (b) may need to rely on some more elementary proof of the same fact.
The earliest explicit discussion I know of this issue (i.e.“contractibility of the walking equivalence as a quality criterion for structured notions of equivalence) is in Steve Lack’s “A Quillen Model Structure for Bicategories”, fixing an error in his earlier “A Quillen Model Structure for 2-categories”, where he had used non-adjoint equivalences — see
http://maths.mq.edu.au/~slack/papers/qmc2cat.html Since it’s just 2-categorical, he’s able to use fully adjoint equivalences — doesn’t have to worry about half-adjointness/coherent-adjointness. Adjoint equivalences of course go back much further — but I don’t know anywhere that this *reason* why they’re better is articulated, before Lack.
And for Joyal-equivalences, I don’t know anywhere they’re explicitly discussed at all, before HoTT. Like Martín, I’d be really interested if anyone does know any earlier sources for them!
–p.