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This question is essentially a followup of this question. But before going into the question let me introduce the relevant definitions as given in The Joy of Cats.

Definition 1. Let $\bf{X}$ be a category. A concrete category over $\bf{X}$ is a pair $({\bf{A}},U)$, where $\bf{A}$ is a category and $U :{\bf{A}} \to X$ is a faithful functor.

Definition 2. If $({\bf{A}},U)$ and $({\bf{B}}, V )$ are concrete categories over $\bf{X}$ , then a concrete functor from $({\bf{A}},U)$ and $({\bf{B}}, V )$ is a functor $F : {\bf{A}}\to {\bf{B}}$ with $U = V \circ F$. We denote such a functor by $F : ({\bf{A}},U)\to ({\bf{B}}, V )$.

Definition 3. If $({\bf{A}},U)$ and $({\bf{B}}, V )$ are concrete categories over $\bf{X}$ , then a concrete functor from $F:({\bf{A}},U)\to ({\bf{B}}, V )$ is said to be a concrete isomorphism iff $F:{\bf{A}}\to{\bf{B}}$ is an isomorphism.

Definition 4. If $({\bf{A}},U)$ and $({\bf{B}}, V )$ are concrete categories over $\bf{X}$ and $E:\mathbf{A}\hookrightarrow\mathbf{B}$ be the inclusion functor. Then $(\mathbf{A},U)$ is called a concrete subcategory of $(\mathbf{B},V)$ if $U=V\circ E$.

Definition 5. Let $({\bf{A}},U)$ and $({\bf{B}}, V )$ are concrete categories over $\bf{X}$ such that $({\bf{A}},U)$ is a concrete subcategory of $({\bf{B}},V)$. Then $({\bf{A}},U)$ is said to be a concretely reflective subcategory of $({\bf{B}},V)$ if

(1) for each $\mathbf{B}$-object $B$ there exists a $\mathbf{B}$-morphism $r:B\to A$ (where $A$ is an $\mathbf{A}$-object) such that for any $\mathbf{A}$-object $A'$ and any $\mathbf{B}$-morphism $f:B\to A'$, there exists an unique $\mathbf{A}$-morphism $g$ such that $g\circ r=f$. These $r$'s are called $\mathbf{A}$-reflection arrows for $B$'s.

(2) for each such $r$ we have $V(B)=V(A)$ and $V(r)=\text{id}_{V(A)}$.

Definition 6. Let $({\bf{A}},U)$ and $({\bf{B}}, V )$ are concrete categories over $\bf{X}$ such that $({\bf{A}},U)$ is a concrete reflective subcategory of $({\bf{B}},V)$. Then the reflector fuctor thus induced is called a concrete reflector.

If $\mathbf{A}$ and $\mathbf{B}$ be two categories and $\mathbf{A}$ is a subcategory of $\mathbf{B}$, then $\mathbf{A}$ is called a reflective subcategory of $\mathbf{B}$ if (1) of the above is satisfied. In this terminology Definition 5 simply says that if $({\bf{A}},U)$ and $({\bf{B}}, V )$ are concrete categories over $\bf{X}$ such that $({\bf{A}},U)$ is a concretely reflective subcategory of $({\bf{B}},V)$ then in particular $\mathbf{A}$ is a reflective subcategory of $\mathbf{B}$.

My Attempt

Motivated by this answer, I first tried to conceptualize the concrete reflector as a reflector which is a concrete functor. But unfortunately this is not the case. Then I tried to conceptualize the concrete reflector as a reflector which is a concrete functor that also preserves the information that "the underlying $\mathbf{X}$-objects of the domain and codomain of a $\mathbf{A}$-reflection arrow for a $\mathbf{B}$-object $B$ is same". But frankly, this is just reinterpreting the definition in a different language and hence I am not satisfied with this and think that there must be some deep reason for adding this condition.

While searching for a motivation for the reason for introducing (2), I stumbled upon J. Fiadeiro's book Categories for Software Engineering. There it is written that,

Intuitively, for the (co)reflection to be "concrete", i.e. to be consistent with the classification that the underlying functor provides, we would like to remain within the same fibre. That is, we would like that the (co)reflection arrows be identities.

But I didn't understand this comment since I don't even have a vague intuitive idea for a concrete functor (the answers to the question that I linked above only focuses on the big-picture viewpoint of the notion of concrete isomorphism).

Question

I am trying to understand the reason for adding (2). What is the motivation for this?

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I suppose that there are possibly many different answer to this question. Here is the one I got.

Being a reflector is equivalent to being an inclusion that has a left adjoint.

In general being a concrete inclusion, thus an inclusion of categories, that is reflective ensure that the inclusion, as a functor of categories, has an adjoint, but there is no garantee that such adjoint is also a concrete functor.

The condition (2) ensures this requirement: a concrete reflector has a left adjoint that is a concrete functor.

This basically grants that concrete reflector are the real reflectors in the 2-categories of concrete categories (over a given category $\mathbf X$): i.e. those inclusion of concrete categories that have a concrete left adjoint.

Hope this helps.

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  • $\begingroup$ Although I haven't gone to study adjoints yet from the The Joy of Cats (they are introduced much later in the book), I can sense the unity between the two concepts from this connection (and which, I must say seems natural to me indeed). Thank you very much for an excellent answer to my question. $\endgroup$
    – user57432
    Aug 11, 2019 at 13:32

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