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(New version appended)

Edit: I'm just trying to understand the presentations of the axioms given elsewhere. I find them a bit too "wordy" for my liking.

Can these statements be used as the axioms for category theory?

  1. $\forall a: Arrow(a)$
  2. $\forall a: Arrow(s(a))$
  3. $\forall a: Arrow(t(a))$
  4. $\forall a: s(t(a))=t(a)$
  5. $\forall a: t(s(a))=s(a)$
  6. $\forall a, b: [t(a)=s(b) \iff Arrow(comp(a,b))]$
  7. $\forall a, b: [Composable(a,b) \iff t(a)=s(b) \land Arrow(comp(a,b))]$
  8. $\forall a: comp(a,t(a))=a$
  9. $\forall a: comp(s(a),a)=a$
  10. $\forall a,b: [Composable(a,b) \implies s(a)=s(comp(a,b)) \land t(b)=t(comp(a,b))]$
  11. $\forall a,b,c:[Composable(comp(comp(a,b),c)), comp(a,comp(b,c)) \implies comp(comp(a,b),c)= comp(a,comp(b,c) ] $

New version incorporating some suggestions posted here...

  1. $\forall a: [Arrow(a) \implies Arrow(s(a))]$

  2. $\forall a: [Arrow(a) \implies Arrow(t(a))]$

  3. $\forall a: [Arrow(a) \implies s(t(a)) = t(a)]$

  4. $\forall a: [Arrow(a) \implies t(s(a)) = s(a)]$

  5. $\forall a,b: [Arrow(a) \land Arrow(b) \implies [Composable(a,b) \iff t(a)=s(b)]]$

  6. $\forall a,b: [Arrow(a) \land Arrow(b) \implies [Composable(a,b) \implies Arrow(a\circ b)]]$

  7. $\forall a: [Arrow(a)\implies a\circ t(a)=a]$

  8. $\forall a: [Arrow(a)\implies s(a)\circ a =a]$

  9. $\forall a, b: [Arrow(a) \land Arrow(b) \implies [Composable(a,b) \implies s(a)=s(a\circ b) \land t(b)=t(a\circ b)]]$

  10. $\forall a,b,c: [Arrow(a) \land Arrow(b) \land Arrow(c) \implies [Composable(a,b) \land Composable(b,c) \implies [Composable(a\circ b, c) \land Composable(a,b\circ c) \implies (a\circ b) \circ c=a\circ (b\circ c)]]]$

Comments, suggestions?

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    Why do you have an arrow predicate if everything is an arrow? I guess to avoid a there exists in 7, but then what is $comp(a,b)$ if it's not an arrow, but axiom 1 says everything is an arrow. I'm not sure this makes sense, but I'm not a logician. Also 11 looks like it's supposed to be associativity, but it definitely looks weird. Like why are you checking if $(ab)c$ and $a(bc)$ are composable? What does that have to do with $(ab)c=a(bc)$? – jgon Mar 03 '20 at 06:28
  • @jgon "Why do you have an arrow predicate if everything is an arrow?" Alternatively, I could restrict all the bound variables to being arrows, e.g. for (2): $\forall a: [Arrow(a) \implies Arrow(s(a))]$. Not sure what the common practice is. – Dan Christensen Mar 03 '20 at 06:37
  • @jgon Also, I use $comp$ as a binary function. I understand that you cannot quantify over functions in FOL. – Dan Christensen Mar 03 '20 at 06:58
  • 6 and 7 definitel look weird to me. In 7 you have put $t(a) = s(b) \wedge Arrow(comp(a,b))$, but in 6 you say that $t(a)=s(b)$ is equivalent to $Arrow(comp(a,b))$, so the conjunction is redundant. I would replace 6 by $\forall a,b : Composable(a,b) \Leftrightarrow t(a) = s(b)$, and then state 7 as $\forall a,b : Composable(a,b) \Leftrightarrow Arrow(comp(a,b))$... That being said, this seems inconsistent to me, since by axiom 1, you have $\forall a : Arrow(a)$, so in particular, for all $a,b$, $comp(a,b)$ is a term, hence an arrow, and by 6, this proves for all $a,b$ you have $t(a)=s(b)$ – Thibaut Benjamin Mar 03 '20 at 10:51
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    This is a solution for wordiness? This is neither compact nor perspicuous, so I'm not sure what problem "wordiness" was presenting that this solves... – Malice Vidrine Mar 03 '20 at 20:09

1 Answers1

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As was pointed out to you, there are several issues with your axioms.

The first one is that you must definitely remove axiom 1: if everything satisfies $Arrow$, then it is a useless predicate, and any use of it in the remaining axioms will most likely make them useless too. In the following, I will assume that axiom 1 has been removed.

My understanding is that your issue is with defining the function $comp$, since it is only defined for pairs of composable arrows, and partial functions are awkward for model theory. Your idea was to create the predicate $Arrow$ so that $comp(a,b)$ always exists, but is only declared as a valid arrow when $t(a)=s(b)$. The first obvious issue is that it means $comp(a,b)$ is completely undetermined for all other pairs of arrows, which will introduce be infinitely many non-equivalent models that should morally be equivalent.

A much more reasonable approach is to use a relation $comp(a,b,c)$ with the meaning that $c$ is the composition $b\circ a$, and axiomatize this (for instance, with an axiom stating that given $a$ and $b$, $c$ exists iff $t(a)=s(b)$, and that in that case it is unique). This is actually how you deal with partial functions: a function is just a relation with special properties, so if you want a partial function just use a relation with less constraints.

Also, I personally find it a little distasteful to define a relation in axioms: your $Composable$ is defined as a synonym of $t(a)=s(b)$, which means it can be eliminated altogether from the axioms. This is just personal taste, though.


New comment after your edit:

  • It is very awkward to switch the usual order of compositions: $a\circ b$ means "$b$ then $a$" for 99.9% of mathematicians, while it seems to mean "$a$ then $b$" in your axioms. It is not wrong per se, since after all the opposite category is a category, but it is at the very least confusing.

  • In axiom 10, $Composable(a\circ b, c)$ and $Composable(a,b\circ c)$ are actually automatic given your other axioms.

I think if you do that you get something which almost axiomatize categories.

I say "almost" because there is a lot of irrelevant data: the function $\circ$ can be anything on non-composable arrows (let alone non-arrows!), and the relation $Composable$ can be anything on non-arrows. This means that actually a model of your axioms is a little more than a category: it is a category plus some extra random data in the form of a function and a relation on a subset of the model.

If you really want to insist with your way of doing things with the $Arrow$ predicate, you should probably at least modify $Composable$ so that $Composable(a,b)$ implies that $a$ and $b$ are arrows. Modify your axiom 5 to say $$\forall a,b: [Composable(a,b)\Leftrightarrow [Arrow(a)\land Arrow(b)\land t(a)=s(b)]].$$ This makes it so $Composable$ is now fixed on the whole structure, and furthermore you don't have to repeat $Arrow(a)\land Arrow(b)$ at the beginning of every axiom, since it's included in $Composable(a,b)$.

Finally, if you want to axiomatize categories (not categories with extra random stuff), you can add a garbage constant, say $\star$, to your language, require that $\star$ is not an arrow, and send all non-composable pairs (including non-arrows) to $\star$. That way your composition is also properly fixed.

My personal opinion is that this remains much more involved than the simple solution with a $3$-ary relation as I suggested earlier, and as in Noah Schweber's comment (which gives a nice full solution).

Captain Lama
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    "A much more reasonable approach is to use a relation $comp(a,b,c)$ with the meaning that $c$ is the composition $b\circ a$, and axiomatize this" Indeed, that's the approach I've seen before. Alternately, we can modify the semantics and deduction system of first-order logic to accommodate partial functions (and arguably should anyways) without real effort. Either way, the approach in the OP isn't ideal. – Noah Schweber Mar 03 '20 at 12:47
  • See new version. – Dan Christensen Mar 03 '20 at 17:12
  • Likewise, see new answer. – Captain Lama Mar 03 '20 at 18:32
  • "$a\circ b$ means "$b$ then $a$" --> OK. "$Composable(a\circ b, c)$ and $Composable(a,b\circ c)$ are actually automatic given your other axioms." --> Wouldn't that require a proof? "The function $\circ$ can be anything on non-composable arrows" --> The arguments of $\circ$ are restricted to pairs of composable functions, so you won't be able to apply $\circ$ to anything else in a proof. "Modify $Composable$ so that $Composable(a,b)$ implies that $a$ and $b$ are arrows." --> Don't like that idea. Like saying x+y=z, therefore x, y, z are natural numbers. – Dan Christensen Mar 03 '20 at 19:02
  • No, you really seem to be missing something. The arguments of $\circ$ are not restricted to pairs of composable arrows in your setting. It is true that you can't prove anything about $a\circ b$ if $a$ and $b$ are not composable arrows, but it does exist. And restricting $Composable$ is not at all like saying that if $x+y=z$ then $x$, $y$ and $z$ are natural numbers, because your model does contain non-arrows, whereas a model for arithmetic will only contain numbers. Really think about it, you seem to be dismissing things that actual do matter. – Captain Lama Mar 03 '20 at 19:22
  • @NoahSchweber I think composition as a partial binary function would be easier to work with. It seems to be the most common approach from what I have seen.BTW what problems might an "object" predicate pose? To me, that seems to be the most natural approach. – Dan Christensen Mar 03 '20 at 19:22
  • @DanChristensen I agree with your first poin. Re: your second point, it doesn't pose any problems but it's utterly unnecessary information and the modification to get rid of it is basically trivial - most of the time in such a situation you want to pare down. – Noah Schweber Mar 03 '20 at 19:28
  • @NoahSchweber Conflating objects and identity arrows, as you suggested, seems very inelegant to me, especially from a pedagogical perspective. Is this approach the most widely used in the literature? – Dan Christensen Mar 03 '20 at 19:37
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    @DanChristensen I don't know (I'm not a category theorist) , but it's actually very much in the spirit of category theory - that we don't "look inside" the objects but rather pay attention to how arrows between objects interact. Forgetting about the objects entirely is in my opinion the natural thing to do. – Noah Schweber Mar 03 '20 at 19:38