From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/7293 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "George Janelidze" Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Bourbaki & category theory Date: Wed, 23 May 2012 13:36:34 +0200 Message-ID: References: <800CD7A683A74A6299D3AEC536E36256@ACERi3> Reply-To: "George Janelidze" NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;format=flowed;charset="iso-8859-1";reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1337827772 24197 80.91.229.3 (24 May 2012 02:49:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 02:49:32 +0000 (UTC) Cc: To: "Colin McLarty" Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Thu May 24 04:49:31 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpx.mta.ca ([138.73.1.80]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SXO7F-0000Pr-JN for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Thu, 24 May 2012 04:49:29 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:43716) by smtpx.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.77) (envelope-from ) id 1SXO6k-0008JU-R9; Wed, 23 May 2012 23:48:58 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SXO6j-0008QG-47 for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Wed, 23 May 2012 23:48:57 -0300 In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:7293 Archived-At: I am ready to take back my criticism and apologize, if the "longer senten= ce"=20 is correct. But is it? I am certainly not an expert in Bourbaki history, and, as far as I rememb= er,=20 they say no word about morphisms in the historical part of "Theory of Set= s"=20 and give no references on categories. But I think they "always" believed=20 that structures determine isomorphisms but not morphisms, and I don't thi= nk=20 they changed their mind between 1951 and 1957. When I say "they" I mean "those of them who made main decisions about the= =20 Bourbaki tractate". Because I hope (!) that not all of them were happy th= at=20 categories are not even defined in the tractate. In my previous message I wrote "Removing Bourbaki's formalism..." but in=20 fact that "formalism" is (not nice but) serious, in the sense that it tak= es=20 us further away from abstract categories. Anyway, we need to know, if it is still possible, how exactly did Bourbak= i=20 definition of morphism(s) came up. George -------------------------------------------------- From: "Colin McLarty" Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 1:06 AM To: "George Janelidze" Cc: Subject: Re: categories: Re: Bourbaki & category theory > On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 5:51 PM, George Janelidze = =20 > wrote: >> Dear Colleagues, >> >> I don't think it is good to say that "Bourbaki had a notion of=20 >> isomorphism >> but no general notion of morphism", even in a brief message! > > It would not be good -- unless it was part of a longer sentence. > > I wrote "Prior to encountering category theory, Bourbaki had a notion > of isomorphism but no general notion of morphism." The Bourbaki > passage you quote was first published in 1957, at least 6 years after > Bourbaki encountered category theory as shown by the letter from Weil > that i quoted. > > best, Colin > > [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]