Special Issue "New Perspectives of Immunity: From Science to Metaphysics"
A special issue of Philosophies (ISSN 2409-9287).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2022) | Viewed by 2480
Special Issue Editor
Interests: metaphysical and epistemological problems posed by immunology
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Recent advances in immunology are transforming our view of the immune system and the phenomenon of immunity. For example, the specificity of antigen recognition and the existence of various forms of immunological memory blurs the boundary between adaptive immunity and innate immunity. It has been clarified that the immune system is closely associated, more than ever, with other systems in an organism, such as the nervous system, the endocrine system, and the metabolic system, such that the immune system appears to be coterminous with the organismal whole. Research that traces the phylogenetic tree also provides us food for thought regarding how to interpret the essential feature of the immune system. The current state with this unprecedented new information can be called a “philosophical situation.” We must face these facts anew and re-question the fundamental issues, such as specificity, cellular activation and regulation, self-recognition, innate and adaptive immunity, immunological memory, homeostatic regulation of biological polarity, and the psychoneuroendocrinoimmune network, and how to consider the immune system and the essential feature of immunity. Furthermore, the omnipresence of immunity in the living realm provides an opportunity to think about organisms and life from the perspective of immunity. To advance these processes, both synchronic and diachronic analysis is indispensable. In this special issue of “immunophilosophy,” we aim to review the current state of our scientific understanding of immunity and deepen analyses of individual phenomena within it or immunity in its totality from the perspectives of science, philosophy, history, and metaphysics. In doing so, we hope to stimulate transdisciplinary discussions and set the stage for establishing a new paradigm, which will serve as a guidepost for future research. We welcome the contributions of papers in this direction or from other promising perspectives.
Dr. Hidetaka Yakura
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- biological polarity
- cognition
- homeostasis
- immune system
- immunity
- memory
- metaphysics
- psychoneuroendocrinoimmune network
