Immunology is central to contemporary biology and medicine, but it also provides novel philosophical insights. Its most significant contribution to philosophy concerns the understanding of biological individuality: what a biological individual is, what makes it unique, how its boundaries are established and what ensures its identity through time. Immunology also offers answers to some of the most interesting philosophical questions. What is the definition of life? How are bodily systems delineated? How do the mind and the body interact? In this Element, Thomas Pradeu considers the ways in which immunology can shed light on these and other important philosophical issues. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Author(s): Thomas Pradeu
Series: Philosophy of Immunology. Elements in the Philosophy of Biology
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: iv+86
Cover
Title page
Copyright page
Philosophy of Immunology
Contents
1 Introduction: The Centrality of Immunity in Biology and Medicine
2 Immunity: A Matter of Defense?
2.1 Historically, Immunity Has Been Understood As the Capacity of an Organism to Defend Itself
against Pathogens
2.2 Defensive Immune Mechanisms Have Been Identified
in Virtually All Living Things
2.3 Extended Immunity: Immunity Goes Well Beyond Defense
2.4 Accounting for the Evolution of Immunological Processes and Attributing a Function to the Immune System
Have Become Difficult
2.5 Is It Still Possible to Offer a Precise and Simple
Definition of Immunity?
3 The Unity of the Individual: Self–Nonself, Autoimmunity, Tolerance, and Symbiosis
3.1 From Early Reflections about Immunological
Individuality to the Concepts of “Self” and “Nonself”
3.2 Autoimmunity, Tolerance, and Symbiotic
Interactions with Microbes
3.3 Immunology’s Contribution to the Definition
of Biological Individuality
3.4 The Role of the Immune System in Turning a Set of
Heterogeneous Constituents into an Integrated Individual
3.5 Combining Different Approaches to Biological Individuality
4 Cancer as a Deunification of the Individual
4.1 How the Immune System Restrains Cancer: The Complex
History of the Idea of Immunosurveillance
4.2 The Dual Action of the Immune System in Both Restraining
and Promoting Cancer: Immunoediting and Beyond
4.3 Immune–Cancer Interactions: Current Views
and Clinical Applications
4.4 Role of the Immune System in the Breakdown
of Biological Individuality That Characterizes Cancer
5 Neuroimmunology: The Intimate Dialogue between the Nervous System and the Immune System
5.1 From Psychoneuroimmunology and Neuroimmunology to Present-Day Characterizations of the Dialogue between
the Nervous and the Immune Systems
5.2 Interactions between the Nervous and the Immune
System in Health
5.3 Interactions between the Nervous and the Immune
System in Pathological Contexts
5.4 Mapping the Different Conceptual Questions Raised
by Neuroimmunology
5.4.1 Interaction: How Do the Nervous and the Immune
System Interact?
5.4.2 Similarity: Are the Nervous and the Immune System
Structurally and/or Functionally Similar?
5.4.3 Overlap: To What Extent Do the Nervous and the Immune
System Overlap or Even Constitute a Single System?
5.4.4 Origins: Do the Nervous and the Immune System Share
Evolutionary Origins?
5.4.5 Control: Does the Nervous System Control the Immune
System or the Other Way Around?
5.5 Conclusion: Some Philosophical Consequences
References
Acknowledgments
