  This paper develops the basics of the theory of involutive categories and
shows that such categories provide the natural setting in which to describe
involutive monoids. It is shown how categories of Eilenberg-Moore algebras of
involutive monads are involutive, with conjugation for modules and vector
spaces as special case. The core of the so-called Gelfand-Naimark-Segal (GNS)
construction is identified as a bijective correspondence between states on
involutive monoids and inner products. This correspondence exists in arbritrary
involutive categories.
