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Recomended reading for the undergrad category theorist

category theory literature

In this video we come across about 50 online resources for category theory:

https://youtu.be/hEW42ARKNoE

I quickly comment on about 20 major ones. I link to the university sites, arXiv sites or Amazon page - most of the mentioned books are online available.

Criteria for my book/text selection here are:

  • it's a book I like
  • it's a classic
  • it's a book that may be taylored for particluar fields/people
  • it's a book on a topic that I mentioned on my youtube channel or that's related to its content

Here's also another category theory list on github

https://github.com/prathyvsh/category-theory-resources

pdf files or at least Amazon links

(Leinster) Basic Category Theory 178

https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.09375

(Awodey) Category Theory 247

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/course/80-413-713/notes/?C=M;O=A -- link seems to be defunkt right now

(Goldblatt) Topoi: The Categorial Analysis of Logic 551

https://www.amazon.com/Topoi-Categorial-Analysis-Logic-Mathematics/dp/0486450260/

(Simmons) An introduction to Category Theory 423

https://dl.icdst.org/pdfs/files3/589bdb0ed138159a2b3e5ccb4268a9f9.pdf

(MacLane) Categories for the Working Mathematician 314

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387984038/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

(Pareigis) Category Theory 90

http://www.mathematik.uni-muenchen.de/~pareigis/Vorlesungen/04SS/Cats1.pdf

(Johnstone, Mehrle) Category Theory 76

http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~dmehrle/notes/partiii/cattheory_partiii_notes.pdf

(Barr, Wells) Category Theory Lecture Notes 133

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.98.9012&rep=rep1&type=pdf

...

(Smith) Category Theory - A Gentle Introduction 290

https://www.logicmatters.net/categories/ https://www.logicmatters.net/resources/pdfs/SmithCat.pdf

(Beaz) Category Theory Course 59

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/qg-winter2016/CategoryTheoryNotes.pdf

Conceptual Mathematics - A first Introduction To Categories (Lawvere, Schanuel) 375

https://www.amazon.com/Conceptual-Mathematics-First-Introduction-Categories/dp/052171916X

(Morehouse) Basic Category Theory 81

http://emorehouse.web.wesleyan.edu/research/notes/basic_category_theory.pdf

...

(Aluffi) Algebra: Chapter 0 713

https://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Chapter-Graduate-Studies-Mathematics/dp/0821847813

(Bergman) An Invitation to General Algebraand Universal Constructions 554

https://math.berkeley.edu/~gbergman/245/3.3.pdf

(Taylor) Practical Foundations of Mathematics 580

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Foundations-Mathematics-Cambridge-Advanced/dp/0521631076

(MacLane) Sheaves in Geometry and Logic: A First Introduction to Topos Theory

https://www.amazon.com/Sheaves-Geometry-Logic-Introduction-Universitext/dp/0387977104

(Borceux) Some glances at topos theory 63 -- this now seems to redirect and isn't there

https://tcsc.lakecomoschool.org/files/2018/06/Como2018.pdf

(Jacobs) Categorical Logic And Type Theory 760

https://www.amazon.com/Categorical-Theory-Studies-Foundations-Mathematics/dp/0444508538

(Rodin) Axiomatic Method and Category Theory 338

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.1478v1.pdf

(Streicher) Introduction to Category Theory and Categorical Logic

https://www2.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de/~streicher/CTCL.pdf

(Paolo Perrone) Notes on Category Theory with examples from basic mathematics

https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.10642

A more math oriented text is

(Riehl) Category Theory in Context 262

https://emilyriehl.github.io/files/context.pdf

That last one is younger than this list and I haven't read it, but I include it as I see it mentioned all the time now.

...

(Spivak) Category Theory for Scientists 197

http://math.mit.edu/~dspivak/teaching/sp13/CT4S--static.pdf

(Fong, Spivak) Seven Sketches in Compositionality: An Invitation to Applied Category Theory 353

https://math.mit.edu/~dspivak/teaching/sp18/7Sketches.pdf

(Fong, Spivak) An Invitation to Applied Category Theory 331

https://www.amazon.com/Invitation-Applied-Category-Theory-Compositionality/dp/1108711820

(Coecke, Paquette) Categories for the practising physicist 105

https://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.3010.pdf

(Milewski) Category Theory for Programmers 498

https://github.com/hmemcpy/milewski-ctfp-pdf/

(Barr, Wells) Category Theory for Computing Science 531

http://www.math.mcgill.ca/triples/Barr-Wells-ctcs.pdf

(Cockett) Category Theory for Computer Science 107

http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~robin/class/617/notes.pdf

tangential fields

I'll quickly link some other open texts here, so that in future references I can just refer to this bottom section...

Above we had a book by Leinster, who is category pilled and also has an introductory set theory book online

(Leinster) Axiomatic Set Theory 243

https://webhomes.maths.ed.ac.uk/~tl/ast/ast.pdf

A 2000's text on a lot of things that connect categories to type theory is

(Jacobs) Categorical Logic and Type Theory ∼800

https://www.amazon.com/Categorical-Theory-Studies-Foundations-Mathematics/dp/0444508538

Although that's a tome and not an easy read, just as a warning.

If you want to get started into type theory, a text I really liked is

(Thompson) Type Theory & Functional Programming 379

https://kar.kent.ac.uk/20998/1/ttfp.pdf

While we're at it, I'll append this logic study guide:

(Smith) Beginning Mathematical Logic 194

https://www.logicmatters.net/resources/pdfs/LogicStudyGuide.pdf

A nice intro to formal logic is

(Dalen) Logic and Structure 275

https://cin.ufpe.br/~mlogica/livros/Logic%20and%20Structure%20-%20Van%20Dalen.pdf

I suppose similar is

(Chiswell, Hodges) Mathematical Logic 259

http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/77708/1/124.pdf

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