total

A locally small category C\C is called total if it satisfies one of the following equivalent conditions:

  1. The covariant Yoneda embedding y:C[Cop,Set]y : \C \to [\C^{\op}, \Set] has a left adjoint. For a concrete example of how such a left adjoint could look, see here.
  2. Every discrete fibration X:ICX : \I \to \C (with I\I not necessarily essentially small) whose fibers are bijective to sets has a colimit in C\C. (Recall that XX is a discrete fibration if for every morphism f:YXif : Y \to X_i in C\C there exists a unique α:ji\alpha : j \to i in I\I such that Xα=fX_\alpha = f.)
  3. Let X:ICX : \I \to \C be a diagram (with I\I not necessarily essentially small) such that for each object YY of C\C, the collection of connected components of the comma category YXY \downarrow X is bijective to a set. Then XX has a colimit in C\C.
The equivalence is proven as Thm. 5.2 and 5.5 in G. M. Kelly, A survey of totality for enriched and ordinary categories.
A general category is called total if it is equivalent to a locally small category which is total.

Relevant implications

Examples

There are 52 categories with this property.

Counterexamples

There are 60 categories without this property.

Unknown

There are 0 categories for which the database has no information on whether they satisfy this property.