TITLE: Why do filtered colimits commute with finite limits?
QUESTION [56 upvotes]: It's not hard to show that this is true in the category Set, and proofs have been written down in many places. But all the ones I know are a bit fiddly.
Question 1: is there a soft proof of this fact?
For example, here's a soft proof of the fact that filtered colimits in Set commute with binary products. If $J$ is a filtered category, and $R,S:J\to$ Set are functors, then 
$$colim_{j\in J} R(j)\times colim_{k\in J} S(k) \cong colim_{j\in J} colim_{k\in J} R(j)\times S(k)$$
$$\cong colim_{(j,k)\in J\times J} R(j)\times S(k) \cong colim_{j\in J} R(j)\times S(j) $$
where the first isomorphism uses the fact that Set is cartesian closed, so that the functors
$X\times-$ and $-\times X$ are cocontinuous; the second isomorphism is the "Fubini theorem"; and the third isomorphism follows from the fact that the diagonal functor $\Delta:J\to J\times J$ is final. 
Is there some way to extend this to deal with equalizers and/or pullbacks? (The case of the
terminal object is easy.)
For the sort of person who'd rather just  prove the fact directly (which after all is not that hard), it's worth pointing out that this proof works not just in Set but for any cartesian closed category with filtered colimits. It works without knowing how to construct colimits in Set.
So another way to ask my question might be
Question 2: what is a class of categories in which you can prove that filtered colimits commute with finite limits (without first proving that this is true in Set)?
So yes, I know that the commutativity holds in any locally finitely presentable category, but the only proofs of this I know depend on the fact that it is true in Set.

REPLY [4 votes]: One possible answer to question 2 is "categories in which finite limits distribute over filtered colimits".  A general notion of distributivity described on the nlab by Dmitri Pavlov points out that the comparison morphism for a diagram $D:I\times K \to C$
$$f\colon {\rm colim}_K {\rm lim}_I D \to {\rm lim}_I {\rm colim}_K D$$
whose invertibility we describe by "$I$-limits commute with $K$-colimits", factors as a composite
$${\rm colim}_K {\rm lim}_I D \xrightarrow{g} {\rm colim}_{K^I} {\rm lim}_I D' \xrightarrow{h} {\rm lim}_I {\rm colim}_K D.$$
where $K^I$ is the functor category and $D'\colon I\times K^I\to C$ is obtained from $D$ by precomposition with the functor $(\pi_1,{\rm ev}) : I\times K^I \to I\times K$ that sends a pair $(i,s)$ to $(i,s(i))$.  The map $g$ is induced by the diagonal functor $K\to K^I$, while $h$ is defined by universal properties.
Thus, if the diagonal $K\to K^I$ is final, it follows that $f$ is an isomorphism if and only if $g$ is.  The latter property is described as "$I$-limits distribute over $K$-colimits", and if $I$ is discrete it's easily equivalent to the usual notion of products distributing over colimits.
However, if $I$ is not discrete, it's not clear to me how to reformulate this distributivity condition in a more explicit way so as to deduce it from something like local cartesian closure, or even to prove directly that it holds in $\rm Set$.  But maybe someone else sees how.