Category with two objects and two arrows.

206 Views Asked by At

Is the category where $\mathrm{Obj}$ has just two different elements $a$ and $b$ and the non identity arrows are $a \to b$ and $b \to a$ really a category? Does it have a name?

The thing is that the "usual" examples I've encountered so far have a lot of objects, like sets, groups, rings, topological spaces, etc... so I'm not sure if this construction leads to something that is not considered a category.

From this question I can see that there is indeed a category with two objects and precisely one arrow, but I'd like to be sure that everything is okay if we add one more arrow on the other direction.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On

It was confirmed in the comments that this is indeed a category. It also has a name: the free(-standing) isomorphism. Functors from this category into some category $\mathcal C$ are precisely isomorphisms in $\mathcal C$.