Abstract:
I will explain Bourbaki's concept of species of structures, described in their Elements of Mathematics, Volume 1, Set Theory, Chapter IV, "Structures". Bourbaki's definition is irreducibly meta-mathematical. Armed with a meta-mathematical understanding of Bourbaki's notion and its relation to formal languages, we come to new formal languages that support improved and generalized versions of the concept of structure, ones that give rise to a more robust, more defensible, structuralist philosophy of mathematics.

This is not part of the McGill Logic, Category Theory, and Computation Seminar's activities, but may be of interest to our regular participants.
It will be held in the Dept of Philosophy, 2910 Edouard-Montpetit, Room 422.
[Organizer: Jean-Pierre.Marquis at UMontreal dot ca]