In Categories for the working mathematician Mac Lane himself explains the origin of the terminology (end of first chapter): "Functor" is taken from R. Carnap, Logische Syntax der Sprache (1934). I am not sure whether linguistics/semiotics in our sense correctly refers to Carnap (Frege, Carnap, Goedel, Popper, Quine, Tarski, ...). Best regards Johannes On Sun, 7 Jul 2013, Steve Stevenson wrote:
Wikipedia says that the word "functor" is borrowed from work by Carnap on linguistics. Is anyone aware of other roots of category theory that come from linguistics/semiotics?
-- D. E. (Steve) Stevenson, PhD, Emeritus Associate Professor, Clemson University "Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach," Aristotle.
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