| article |
| Evolutionary Activeness of the Immune Self |
| Evolutionary Activeness of the Immune Self, Philosophy of Medicine(The Journal of the Korean Association for Philosophy of Medicine) Nr.15(2013), 39-65, in Korean Choi, Jongduck The immunology has been understood as a defense mechanism. The defense mechanism means how to protect self against non-self. The defense mechanism is regarded as passive responses with micro-physiological functions to check and keep away foreign invaders. This paper argues that the immune system does not contain the defense mechanism only but also the immunologic activeness. In order to make my points, I offer a philosophical homology between evolutionary thinking and immune system. This paper therefore draws on evolutionary relevances and proofs of immunologic cases. In section 2, I explain why evolutionary thinking is important at immune system. Furthermore, I will try to bear out the validity of the immunologic activeness by the examples of immune specificity, immunologic memory and immune tolerance in section 3. My goal here is to argue that the immunologic activeness is an evolutionary product that was adapted from passive immune prototype. Key Words: Immune Self, Immunological Activeness, Immune Specificity, Immunologic Memory, Evolution, Adaptedness, philosophical ontology Abbas et al.(1997), Cellular and Molecular Immunology, Philadelphia: Saunders. Alberts, et al.(2002), Molecular Biology of the Cell, New York: Garland Science. Brandon, Robert(1990), Adaptation and Environment, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Cohen, E.(2009), A Body Worth Defending, Durham; London: Duke Univ. Press. Dobzhansky(1968), “Adaptedness and fitness,” Population Biology and Evolution, Lewontin ed., New York: Syracuse Univ. Press. Gilbert, Scott F.(2003), “The morphogenesis of evolutionary developmental biology,” Int. J. Dev. Biol. 47: pp.467-477. Gould, S. J. & Vrba, E. S.(1982), “Exaptation: A missing term in the science of form,” Paleobiology 8, pp.4-15. Klein, J. (1982), Immunology: The Science Self- Non-Self Discrimination, New York: Wiley. Lewontin, R. C.(1970), “The Units of Selection,” Annual Reviews of Ecology and Systematics 1: pp.1-18. Silverstein, A. M.(1989), A History of Immunology, London: Kluwer Academic Press. Sober, E. and Wilson D.S.(1998), Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press. Sober, Eliott(1984), The nature of selection: evolutionary theory in philosophical focus, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Tauber, A. I.(1997), The Immune Self; Theory or Metaphor?, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge Univ. Press. Tauber, A. I. and Chernyak, L.(1991), Metchnikoff and the Origines of Immunoloogy, Oxford University Press. Tauber, A. I. ed.(1991), Organism and the origins of Self, Kluwer .Academic Williams, G. C.(1966), Adaptation and Natural Selection, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Williams, G. C.(1992), Natural selection, New York: Oxford University Press. |