nLab
ETCS

The Elementary Theory of the Category of Sets, ETCS for short, is a formulation of set-theoretic foundations in a category-theoretic spirit. As such, it is the prototypical structural set theory. The axioms of ETCS can be summed up in one sentence as:

ETCS was proposed by Bill Lawvere, who published an undergraduate set-theory textbook using it:

An informative discussion of the pros and cons of Lawvere’s approach can be found in

  • Jean-Pierre Marquis, Kreisel and Lawvere on Category Theory and the Foundations of Mathematics (pdf)

Erik Palmgren has a constructive predicative variant of ETCS, which can be summarized as: Set is a well-pointed Π-pretopos with a NNO and enough projectives (i.e. COSHEP is satisfied). Here “well-pointed” must be taken in its constructive sense, as including that the terminal object is indecomposable and projective.

  • Erik Palmgren, Constructivist and Structuralist Foundations: Bishop’s and Lawvere’s Theories of Sets (pdf)

Todd Trimble’s exposition of ETCS

Todd Trimble has a series of expositional writings on ETCS which provide a very careful introduction and at the same time a wealth of useful details.