Immunity and the Constitution of Identity

Immunity and the Constitution of Identity offers a philosophical account of immunology as a science of biological identity. For much of the twentieth century the field rested on the self/non-self model introduced by Frank Macfarlane Burnet. This model presents the organism as a bounded and autonomous entity whose immune system defends a fixed inner self against the foreign. Research on the microbiome, pregnancy, cancer, and normal autoimmunity has challenged this picture. These cases show that the immune system tolerates and incorporates foreign elements rather than only rejecting them.The book argues that immune identity is not a property the organism possesses in advance. It emerges through the ongoing developmental, microbial, and ecological relations with its environment. The authors distinguish etiological explanation, which traces the causal sequence of immune responses, from constitutive explanation, which asks what kind of relational whole the immune system is. The distinction supports a processual and ecological account of immune cognition and individuality. It shows how immunology informs central questions in the philosophy of biology, including what counts as an organism, how biological boundaries are drawn and maintained, and how living systems process meaning and context.