Publications

Publication details [#12150]

Anderson, Warwick . 2014. Getting Ahead of One’s Self? The Common Culture of Immunology and Philosophy . ISIS 105 (3) : 606–616. 11 pp.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
The University of Chicago Press -on behalf of The History of Science Society

Abstract

In the past thirty years, much social theory and philosophy have been given shape by immunological metaphors, motifs, and models. Apparently, immunology has helped naturalize claims regarding self, identity, and sovereignty, especially in Jacques Derrida’s later studies. Considering that the immunological science seen as “nature” in these social and philosophical arguments is a result from interwar and Cold War social theory and philosophy, theoretical immunologists and social theorists have participated intentionally in a common culture. Therefore, what is called the “naturalistic fallacy”, in this case, may be reevaluated as an error of categorization, because its conditions of possibility would demand incessant effort to establish as clear-cut and pure the categories of nature and culture.