Mostowski Collapse Lemma - Generalizations

Generalizations

Every well-founded set-like relation can be embedded into a well-founded set-like extensional relation. This implies the following variant of the Mostowski collapse lemma: every well-founded set-like relation is isomorphic to set-membership on a (non-unique, and not necessarily transitive) class.

A mapping F such that F(x) = {F(y) : y R x} for all x in X can be defined for any well-founded set-like relation R on X by well-founded recursion. It provides a homomorphism of R onto a (non-unique, in general) transitive class. The homomorphism F is an isomorphism if and only if R is extensional.

The well-foundedness assumption of the Mostowski lemma can be alleviated or dropped in non-well-founded set theories. In Boffa's set theory, every set-like extensional relation is isomorphic to set-membership on a (non-unique) transitive class. In set theory with Aczel's anti-foundation axiom, every set-like relation is bisimilar to set-membership on a unique transitive class, hence every bisimulation-minimal set-like relation is isomorphic to a unique transitive class.