Understanding immunity. An alternative framework beyond defense and strength

0571591 - FLÚ 2024 RIV NL eng J - Journal Article
Zach, Martin - Greslehner, G. P.
Understanding immunity. An alternative framework beyond defense and strength.
Biology & Philosophy. Roč. 38, č. 1 (2023), č. článku 7. ISSN 0169-3867. E-ISSN 1572-8404
Institutional support: RVO:67985955
Keywords : immune system * contextuality * regulation * trade-offs * strong immunity * covid-19 * SARS-CoV-2
OECD category: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Impact factor: 2.5, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Open access
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-023-09893-2

In this paper we address the issue of how to think about immunity. Many immunological writings suggest a straightforward option: the view that the immune system is primarily a system of defense, which naturally invites the talk of strong immunity and strong immune response. Despite their undisputable positive role in immunology, such metaphors can also pose a risk of establishing a narrow perspective, omitting from consideration phenomena that do not neatly fit those powerful metaphors. Building on this analysis, we argue two things. First, we argue that the immune system is involved not only in defense. Second, by disentangling various possible meanings of “strength” and “weakness” in immunology, we also argue that such a construal of immunity generally contributes to the distortion of the overall picture of what the immune system is, what it does, and why it sometimes fails. Instead, we propose to understand the nature of the immune system in terms of contextuality, regulation, and trade-offs. We suggest that our approach provides lessons for a general understanding of the organizing principles of the immune system in health and disease. For all this to work, we discuss a wide range of immunological phenomena.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0343169