A few years ago I began a sketch on the “Precursors of Category Theory”, aiming to trace the continuities of the category concept from Aristotle, to Kant and Peirce, through Hilbert and Ackermann, to contemporary mathematical practice.  A Survey of blog and wiki notes on the subject is given below, still very rough and incomplete, but perhaps a few will find it of use.

Wiki Notes

• Precursors Of Category Theory
• Propositions As Types Analogy

Blog Posts

• Notes On Categories • (1)
• Precursors Of Category Theory • (1) • (2) • (3)
• Discussions • (1) • (2) • (3)

Categories à la Peirce

• C.S. Peirce • A Guess at the Riddle
• Peirce’s Categories • (1) • (2) • (3) • (4) • (5) • (6) • (7) • (8) • (9) • (10) • (11) • (12) • (13) • (14) • (15) • (16) • (17) • (18) • (19) • (20) • (21)

cc: Cybernetics • Ontolog Forum • Peirce List • Structural Modeling • Systems Science