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Is there a foundational approach that takes "structure" as primitive?

As per the title, I'd be curious to know if there have been attempts at constructing a foundation of mathematics taking, somehow, purely the notion of "structure" as primitive, maybe via a system of ...
Qfwfq's user avatar
  • 23.3k
38 votes
4 answers
6k views

Could groups be used instead of sets as a foundation of mathematics?

Sets are the only fundamental objects in the theory $\sf ZFC$. But we can use $\sf ZFC$ as a foundation for all of mathematics by encoding the various other objects we care about in terms of sets. The ...
Oscar Cunningham's user avatar
11 votes
0 answers
342 views

Categorial foundations via "categories of algebras"

There are categorical foundations for mathematics axiomatizing the category of sets (Lawvere's ETCS), cartesian closed categories (type theory), and the category of spaces (homotopy type theory). ...
user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
492 views

Is ETCS well-founded?

I can't find a statement about the axiom of regularity anywhere in treatments of ETCS. Perhaps this is due to the unfortunate clash of terminology with 'foundations'.
seldon's user avatar
  • 1,083
36 votes
6 answers
6k views

Who needs Replacement anyway?

The set theory ETCS famously comes without the Replacement axiom schema (or an equivalent) that is part of ZFC. One (to me, not apparently useful) set that one cannot build in ETCS is $\coprod_{n\in \...
David Roberts's user avatar
  • 35.4k
17 votes
10 answers
7k views

Set theory and alternative foundations

Every foundational system for mathematics I have ever read about has been a set theory, from ETCS to ZFC to NF. Are there any proposals for a foundational system which is not, in any sense, a set ...
psihodelia's user avatar