Rocco Gangle: Diagrammatic Immanence: Category Theory and Philosophy (2015)

“A renewal of immanent metaphysics through diagrammatic methods and the tools of category theory.

Spinoza, Peirce and Deleuze are, in different ways, philosophers of immanence. Rocco Gangle addresses the methodological questions raised by a commitment to immanence in terms of how diagrams may be used both as tools and as objects of philosophical investigation. He integrates insights from Spinozist metaphysics, Peircean semiotics and Deleuze’s philosophy of difference in conjunction with the formal operations of category theory.

Category theory reveals deep structural connections among logic, topology and a variety of different areas of mathematics, and it provides constructive and rigorous concepts for investigating how diagrams work. Gangle introduces the methods of category theory from a philosophical and diagrammatic perspective, allowing philosophers with little or no mathematical training to come to grips with this important field.

This coordination of immanent metaphysics, diagrammatic method and category theoretical mathematics opens a new horizon for contemporary thought.”

Publisher Edinburgh University Press, 2015
ISBN 1474404170, 9781474404174
256 pages
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WorldCat

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David I. Spivak: Category Theory for the Sciences (2013)

“Category theory was invented in the 1940s to unify and synthesize different areas in mathematics, and it has proven remarkably successful in enabling powerful communication between disparate fields and subfields within mathematics. This book shows that category theory can be useful outside of mathematics as a rigorous, flexible, and coherent modeling language throughout the sciences. Information is inherently dynamic; the same ideas can be organized and reorganized in countless ways, and the ability to translate between such organizational structures is becoming increasingly important in the sciences. Category theory offers a unifying framework for information modeling that can facilitate the translation of knowledge between disciplines.

Written in an engaging and straightforward style, and assuming little background in mathematics, the book is rigorous but accessible to non-mathematicians. Using databases as an entry to category theory, it begins with sets and functions, then introduces the reader to notions that are fundamental in mathematics: monoids, groups, orders, and graphs—categories in disguise. After explaining the “big three” concepts of category theory—categories, functors, and natural transformations—the book covers other topics, including limits, colimits, functor categories, sheaves, monads, and operads. The book explains category theory by examples and exercises rather than focusing on theorems and proofs. It includes more than 300 exercises, with selected solutions.

Category Theory for the Sciences is intended to create a bridge between the vast array of mathematical concepts used by mathematicians and the models and frameworks of such scientific disciplines as computation, neuroscience, and physics.”

Published 2013
267 pages

Spivak’s 2013 course at MITOpenCourseWare

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