Medial commutativity (Q882124)

The object of this paper is to give an alternative language for symmetric monoidal categories. This is achieved by showing that there is a unifying principle, called medial commutativity (or middle-four interchange in categorical terminology), from which all the assumptions for symmetric monoidal categories follow. This principle involves natural isomorphisms of the type \[ (A\wedge B)\wedge (C\wedge D)\rightarrow (A\wedge C)\wedge (B\wedge D) \] whose preservation, in presence of the unit object, by the functor \(\wedge\) implies Mac Lane's pentagonal and hexagonal coherence conditions for associativity and commutativity. Analogous results are discussed in the absence of symmetry and also of the unit object.