Identity and Individuality as Driving Forces behind the Construction of Immunology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48160/18532330me5.132Keywords:
immunology, self-organism, teleology, mechanismAbstract
The distinction between self and non-self has been central to contemporary immunology and a source of great controversy. At present, it is presumed that the self is a metaphor introduced in the genesis of contemporary immunology as a way of accounting for immunogenicity. However, in this paper we develop the idea that talking about the self was the way Frank Macfarlane Burnet achieved the disciplinary synthesis that gave birth to immunology. As we argue, the notion of self allowed Burnet to negotiate the disciplinary, methodological and theoretical aspects immunology would inherit from its parent fields, among others, biochemistry, medicine,or molecular biology. These disciplines have quarreled historically with particular views of what should be consideredbiological. The self takes form by siding with particular parts of these debates.
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