Constructions on Categories

Duality

Categorical duality is the process of reversing all arrows. For example, the dual statement of $f: a \to b$ is $f: b \to a$; the dual statement of “$f$ is monic” is “$f$ is epi”, and the dual of “$t$ is terminal” is “$t$ is initial”.

The duality principle also applies to statements involving several categories and functors between them. Note that the duality here reverses the arrows in the category, not the functor between them.

Contravariance and Opposites