Algebraic Theories over Nominal Sets

Abstract

We investigate the foundations of a theory of algebraic data types with variable binding inside classical universal algebra. In the first part, a category-theoretic study of monads over the nominal sets of Gabbay and Pitts leads us to introduce new notions of finitary based monads and uniform monads. In a second part we spell out these notions in the language of universal algebra, show how to recover the logics of Gabbay-Mathijssen and Clouston-Pitts, and apply classical results from universal algebra.