--Title: The Many Functions of Functor

--Although I became most familiar with the word through

Category Theory, I knew that "functor" had at least a
meanings in other contexts. I'd looked up its history
neglected to write it down. Now I won't have to do it

exposure to
couple of other
before, but
again!

The Players: Carnap, Quine, Tarski

---------------------------------According to a number of sources, "functor" entered the lexicon via
the work of [Rudolf Carnap][RC]. Carnap studied philosophy, physics,
and mathematics at university, including several courses in
mathematics and logic from Gottlob Frege. He later studied the theory
of relativity at Berlin, where Einstein was professor of physics.
His dissertation concerned an axiomatic system for space-time theory,
which was written from a philosophical point of view. Thereafter he
became involved with the [Vienna Circle][VC] of philosophers and ended
up as a leading member. This group advanced the philosophy of logical
positivism and was deeply concerned with the philosophy and practice of
science.
In 1929, Carnap met [Alfred Tarski][AT], a Polish logician from the
[Lvov-Warsaw school of philosophy][LW] who was developing a logical
basis for the meaning of truth. A few years later, he moved to Prague
to become a professor and wrote the 1934 book *The Logical Syntax of
Language*, which contains (as far as I am aware) the first use of
"functor". I will return to the book in a moment, after making a few
more of Carnap's connections apparent.
In Prague, Carnap met the philosophers [Willard van Orman Quine][WQ]
and Charles Morris. When World War II broke out, they helped Carnap
escape to the United States, where he remained. Tarski escaped Poland
to the USA as well, and the trio of Carnap, Quine, and Tarski were
thus able to meet (along with other leading philosophers and
logicians) for a [year at Harvard][CTQ] to work on the leading issues
of analytical philosophy.
Carnap's Logical Syntax of Language
----------------------------------As part of his desire
ground, Carnap wanted
that could be used to
[Logical Syntax][LSL]
which to reason about

to put the practice of science on firm logical

to have an appropriate understanding of language
properly express scientific truths.
creates a formal system, a meta-language, with
constructs of natural language.

The meta-language defines syntactic constructs belonging to four

categories:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

A fixed set of 11 symbols

(Numerical) variables
Constant numerals
Predicates
Functors

The point was to remove ambiguity of names and to add precision by

designating things numerically as much as possible.

### Basic forms
Designation of *things* was done positionally by numerical coordinates
rather than by symbolic name. Positional numerals were defined
inductively from `0` designating the initial position and primes
marking successive positions. The traditional Arabic numerals were
introduced as shorthand, as well as the possibility of tupling numbers
to represent higher-dimensional positions.
Expressing properties of things was done via *predicates* over
positions. These could express direct properties of things or
relationships between things, but in a symbolic manner via the
name-form of the predicate.
In order to represent properties numerically, the idea of *functor*
was introduced. Functors were similar in form to predicates, in that
they had a name-form and took numeric arguments, but instead of
representing facts and/or relations they represented another numeric
value.
### Expressions
Valid combinations of the basic forms create expressions. Two
important kinds of expressions were "sentences" and "numerical
expressions."
Sentences express logical truth value, so the expression of a
predicate form is a sentence. Some of the symbols are combining forms
that create sentences as well, such as equations.
Expressions of functors, on the other hand, are always numerical
expressions. Numeric expression was very important to Carnap for the
precise transmission of scientific detail, so he valued this precision
of functor expression over the more "vague" relative or symbolic
nature of predicate expressions.
Although Carnap's concept of functor seems similar to that of a
mathematical function, it is actually quite different. Functions are
always a fixed relation between numbers, but functors may represent
numerical observations of the world as well, such as the example given
early on of the *temperature-functor* that has the numeric value of
the temperature of its argument.
Connection to Category Theory
----------------------------[Saunders Mac Lane][SM], one of the founders of Category Theory, was
an associate of Carnap's at the University of Chicago and was given
the English translation of *Logical Syntax of Language* in 1938 for
review. He was not particularly interested in the philosophical
aspects of Carnap's usage of "functor", but in it he saw a perfect
candidate to resolve a similar [notational dilemma][TO] in Category
Theory.
So, the Category Theory notion of "functor" is related to Carnap's
original usage by similarity of role, as a stand-in for something
"function-like" in some aspect, rather than being related by
definition or usage. Steve Awodey, an associate of Mac Lane's and a

category theorist himself, [remarked][CCC] that the word "functor" may

end up being "Carnap's most far-reaching contribution to modern
mathematics."
Quine's Predicate-Functor Logic
------------------------------Quine, Tarski, and Carnap [conversed][CTQ] about Carnap's logical
syntax while they were together at Harvard, and it seems to have
influenced Quine's thinking about logic. He certainly adopted the term
"functor", though he expanded its meaning. Quine thought that Carnap's
connective symbols, e.g. the equality symbol that generates equations,
should be replaced by more general operators that construct sentences
via composition.
Quine later referred to these operators as "predicate-functors"
(possibly following Carnap's convention of naming a sort of functor by
its domain, e.g. "temperature-functor") and developed an [algebraic
logic][ALP] based around them.
He later gave a more [general definition][ML] to the term "functor"
itself, encompassing this new role as a generator of sentences rather
than a numeric relation. It should also be noted that while Carnap was
concerned with discussing language in general, including natural
language, Quine was primarily interested in formal logic systems. In
particular, his Predicate Functor Logic was an alternative to
Combinatory Logic that avoided higher-order functions and the
resulting encroachment of set theory into the system, which he viewed
as outside the scope of logic.
Categorical Grammar
------------------Tarski's early career was influenced by his thesis advisor
[Stanislaw Lesniewski][SL] and also by the other prominent Lvov-Warsaw
philospher [Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz][KA]. Lesniewski worked in the field
of ontology and was particularly interested in semantic categories;
this use of "category" is due to Husserl and can be traced back to
Aristotle.
Ajdukiewicz applied the notion of categories to the syntax of language
to create the field of [categorical grammar][CG]. The syntactic
structure was thought to determine the semantic meaning in reasonable
languages, thus the borrowed categorical terminology.
Syntactic categories are an equivalence class of expressions such that
a sentence containing one of these sentences remains a sentence when
it is substituted for any other expression that is a member of the
same category. As such, syntactic categories are essentially the same
as the types of Russell.
There are two kinds of categories; basic categories, which are
enumerated in the definition of the language, and all others are
complex (derived) categories. Expressions in complex categories are
created by combining other expressions via a special kind of "functor"
expression. These other expressions are called "arguments" to the
functor, and the new compound expression is the functor's "value".
Although Ajdukiewicz's early work on syntactic categories predated
*Logical Syntax of Language*, it seems likely that the field of

Categorical Grammar was influenced both directly via the text, which
shared similar goals, and probably also via the influence of Tarski
and Quine who made use of it (if not for precisely the same purposes)
in their own work.
Categorical Grammar is primarily concerned with matters of natural
language, but Joachim Lambek's work on the [Lambek Calculus][LC] drew
it somewhat back towards mathematics and logic. Lambek Calculus
resembles in some ways Alonzo Church's Lambda Calculus (of the simply
typed variety), Quine's Functor Predicate Logic, and combinatory
logic.
Of parenthetical interest is the fact that the logicians of the
Lvov-Warsaw school preferred to place their functors at the front of
their arguments; by this practice they allowed expressions to be
unambiguous without parentheses. This practice became known as "Polish
Notation", which is familiar to many users of Hewlett Packard
calculators by way of its similarly bracketless Reverse Polish
Notation.
Functors in Programming
----------------------The use of functor via its Category Theory interpretation is familiar
to many functional programmers today. It has a direct, though not
all-encompassing, presence in Haskell via the Functor type class.
Perhaps not quite so familiar is the linguistic interpretation as used
by [Prolog][PRO]. And the SML Module language uses the term functor;
although this can be interpreted in the categorical sense, it also
makes sense from the perspective of Quine's Predicate Functor
Logic. C++'s use of functor to mean "function-like object" seems to be
another repurposing of the word along the lines of Mac Lane's.
[RC]: http://www.iep.utm.edu/carnap/ "IEP: Rudolf Carnap"
[VC]: http://www.iep.utm.edu/viennacr/ "IEP: Vienna Circle"
[AT]: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tarski/ "SEP: Alfred Tarski"
[LW]: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lvov-warsaw/ "SEP: Lvov-Warsaw School"
[WQ]: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quine/ "SEP: Willard van Orman Quine"
[CTQ]: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/7768/ "Carnap, Tarski, and Quine's Year Tog
ether: Logic, Science, and Mathematics"
[LSL]: http://books.google.com/books?id=3e3gAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=rudolf%20carnap&
pg=PA14#v=onepage&q=functor&f=false "Google Books: Logical Syntax of Language"
[SM]: http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/05/050421.maclane.shtml "Saunders Ma
c Lane, Mathematician, 1909-2005"
[TO]: http://books.google.com/books?id=41bHxtHxjUAC&lpg=PA69&ots=Vj9lsB_gf2&dq=c
arnap%20functor&pg=PA70#v=snippet&q=%22metamathematical%20expression%22&f=false
"Tool and Object: A History and Philosophy of Category Theory"
[CCC]: http://books.google.com/books?id=DR5DAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA197&ots=hUJG4tMAo7&dq
=carnap%20logische%20syntax%20der%20sprache%20english&pg=PA197#v=onepage&q=funct
or&f=false "The Cambridge Companion to Carnap"
[CTQ]: http://books.google.com/books?id=s14AAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA139&ots=-2_K3d7uP-&dq
=quine%20carnap%20functor&pg=PA145#v=snippet&q=Quine%20statement%20composition&f
=false "Carnap, Tarski, and Quine at Harvard"
[ALP]: http://books.google.com/books?id=YReOv31gdVIC&lpg=PA283&dq=%22Algebraic%2
0Logic%20and%20Predicate%20Functors%22&pg=PA283#v=onepage&q=%22Algebraic%20Logic
%20and%20Predicate%20Functors%22&f=false "Algebraic Logic and Predicate Functors
"
[ML]: http://books.google.com/books?id=liHivlUYWcUC&lpg=PP1&dq=quine&pg=PA129#v=
onepage&q=functor&f=false "Methods of Logic"
[CG]: http://books.google.com/books?id=iVVAAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA234&ots=P6VDNfpt8Q&dq=

frege%20functor&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q=functor&f=false "Categorical Grammar"

[SL]: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lesniewski/ "SEP: Stanis aw Le niewski"
[KA]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_Ajdukiewicz "Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz"
[LC]: http://ling.umd.edu/~alxndrw/CGReadings/lambek-58.pdf "The Mathematics of
Sentence Structure"
[PRO]: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~billw/prologdict.html#functor "Prolog Functor
"