Immunity in Context: Science and Society in Dialogue

Abstract

According to immunology's prevailing paradigm, immunity is based on self/nonself discrimination and thus requires a construction of identity. Two orientations vie for dominance: The original conception, conceived in the context of infectious diseases, regards the organism as insular and autonomous, an entity that requires defense of its borders. An alternate view places the organism firmly in its environment in which both benign and onerous encounters occur. On this latter relational account, active tolerance allows for cooperative relationships with other organisms in the larger ecological economy. These contending orientations -one derived from biomedicine and the other from the ecological sciences-have drawn the attention of social scientists and culture critics. On the one hand, feminists have portrayed immune theory as based upon borrowed social notions of identity that reflect male aggressive values and thus distort more balanced accounts of immunity; and, on the other hand, other commentary projects immune theory as a framework in which analysis of Western societies putatively reveals analogous patterns of 'self' and 'other' interactions, where autoimmunity and immunization are understood as expressions of the insular understanding of identity. Here, a meta-interpretation is presented that shows how these critiques place the immune self on a spectrum stretching from its formulation as an autonomous agent, a modernist conception of the independent individual, to a postmodern portrayal in which this conception of selfhood has been deconstructed. Accordingly, immunology is drawn into a wide-ranging debate about agency, where differing interpretations of immunity serves as a template in which competing understandings of human social intercourse is modeled.Key words: immunology, immunity, selfhood, postmodernism, ecology, individuality.RESUMEN: Según el paradigma dominante en inmunología, la inmunidad está basada en la discriminación entre yo/noyo y requiere, por tanto, una construcción de la identidad. Dos orientaciones compiten por dominar: la concepción original, concebida en el contexto de las enfermedades infecciosas contempla al organismo como aislado y autónomo, como una entidad que necesita defender sus fronteras. Una visión alternativa sitúa firmemente al organismo en su entorno, en el cual suceden tanto encuentros beneficiosos como costosos. En este enfoque relacional, la tolerancia activa permite relaciones cooperativas con otros organismos en una economía ecológica más amplia. Estas orientaciones en liza -una derivada de la biomedicina y otra de las ciencias ecológicas-han llamado la atención de los científicos sociales y de los críticos de la cultura. Por una parte, el feminismo ha descrito la teoría inmunológica como basada en nociones sociales prestadas de identidad que reflejan los valores agresivos del macho y que, de este modo, impiden una explicación más equilibrada de la inmunidad. Por otra parte, otro comentario proyecta la teoría inmunológica como un marco en el que el análisis ...

The holobiont mind: A bridge between 4E-cognition and the microbiome

“…These dynamics are carefully mediated by the immune system (Eberl, 2010). Thus, following Tauber (Tauber, 2016), the immune system fulfills the larger ecological demand of actively sustaining the integrity of the holobiont by regulating its components (i.e., the holobiont's social ecology) (Chu & Mazmanian, 2013;Salzman et al, 2003). Interestingly, the very same components of the holobiont participate in the development of the immune system (Duan et al, 2010;Varela et al, 1988;Wesemann, 2015;Yoo et al, 2020).…”

The holobiont self: understanding immunity in context

“…Furthermore, the notion of individuality in this regard is closer to the notion of an ecosystem as an individual (Huneman, 2014 ; Millstein, 2018 , 2020a ; Odenbaugh, 2007 , 2010 ). Thus, changing the framework of the host perspective of the holobiont from that of physiological to that of ecological and immunological, the conceptualization of immunity changes as well to be within ecological perspective, i.e., eco-immunity (Tauber, 2016 ). This move also changes the perspective on the immune identity from a property of the host to that of a system of interactions that materializes as the host-ecosystem, i.e., the holobiont.…”

“…The main critique of the discriminatory self elaborated by Alfred Tauber’s pervasive writing is that of the philosophical, or more specific, epistemic unstable ground of the concept of the self together with new evidence of the symbiotic nature of the host interactions with microbes (Gilbert & Tauber, 2016 ; Gilbert et al, 2012 ; Tauber, 2017 ). 7 Tauber’s alternative approach considers the immune system and immunity from an ecological perspective, which includes immune tolerance responses, and the maintenance of the organism’s internal interactions in a cohesive balance distinguished from other environmental interactions (Tauber, 2016 , 2017 ). In a shared paper with Scott Gilbert they write: The multiple functions of the immune system, especially its ability to achieve states of tolerance for assimilative processes expand the self-defensive role of immunology into a larger “ecological” context of promoting organismal identity through dialogue with both the internal and external environments.…”

“…Furthermore, the holobiont and the immune self are both at the heart of an ongoing scientific and philosophical examination concerning questions on the relations between organisms and their environment. Immunity and the immune self are concepts used in the demarcation of a physiological individuality with distinct boundaries and physiological identity (Pradeu, 2016 , 2019 ; Tauber, 2016 , 2017 ). Examining the holobiont, the question of physiological boundaries and individuality is challenging because it is both an individual and an assemblage of organisms with physiological cohesive aspects.…”

A part‐dependent account of biological individuality: why holobionts are individuals and ecosystems simultaneously

“…This perspective encompasses the family of theories according to which the physiological individuality of a biological ensemble is determined by the interactions that happen in the immunological system. According to the immunological view, a group of biological elements constitutes an individual only if there is an immunological system that can actively determine which elements belong to the group, and which elements are excluded from it (Tauber, 1994, 2016; Pradeu, 2010, 2012, 2016 b ; Pradeu & Vivier, 2016). Traditionally, the immunological conception of individuality assumed that the immunological system acted as a ‘barrier’ that determined the boundaries between the self and the non‐self, eliminating any possible intruders, and tolerating those elements that were parts of the self.…”