Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

THE SELF OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE SELF OF IMMUNOLOGY MOIRA HOWES* There are a number of fascinating parallels that might be drawn between theoretical developments concerning the self in philosophy and in immunology. These developments have scarcely encountered one another , and yet, despite their isolation, they have proceeded along remarkably similar paths. I suggest that the reason for this similar progression is that theories of the self in philosophy and immunology have in common an underlying assumption. This assumption is that the self, if it is to be a self, must have some stable core, essence, or foundation that enables it to be reidentified through time. I will call this essence or foundation the "substantial" self, even though it is not necessary that a substance form this core: psychological continuity, for instance, serves well as such a foundation, according to some. The substantial self is almost like an anchor: it is that which maintains the self while its properties change. And, it is this anchor or foundation which is thought to be the real self. It is important to be aware that philosophers holding substantive-type views of the self do not mean to say that nothing about the self changes. It is only the foundation of the self that must remain identical through time—the properties of that self can change. Changes in properties will not alienate the self from what it was in the past, provided that what grounds the self remains the same. On this view, then, it would not be paradoxical to have a self that was both the same over time and ever-changing: in each case "self" actually refers to something different. In the first instance, This paper has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship 752-97-1251. The author would like to thank John Thorp for the many helpful discussions concerning this paper. *Department of Philosophy, Talbot College, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 3K7 Canada.© 1998 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0031-5982/98/4201-1086$01.001 118 Moira Howes ¦ The Self ofPhilosophy and the Self of Immunology "self" refers to the substantial anchor; and in the second, "self" refers to the properties of the self. As long as there is a stable anchor, changes can occur and personal identity can be retained. The assumption that the self must be substantial generates a dilemma. This dilemma is that if there is no such thing as a substantial self, then there can be no self at all. Reidentification over time requires a substantial self, and, it is claimed, we cannot have a self without reidentification. I argue that self theorists in both immunology and philosophy are forced to embrace one or the other horn of this dilemma. Exposing this assumption and the dilemma it generates, then, may be of advantage to both disciplines . In philosophy, at least, this assumption continues to generate a conceptual imbroglio. Parallels between the selves of philosophy and immunology have already been examined to some extent by Alfred Tauber in his book The Immune Self: Theory or MetaphorÌ which is the largest scale work on the topic to date [I]. However, I argue that the parallels drawn by Tauber are vague and, in some sense, superficial—at the very least they require clarification. Part of the reason for this stems from Tauber's focus on continental and postmodern traditions in philosophy as a source ofconcepts for the self. Instead of this, I argue that the assumption that the selfis substantial must be examined from the area of philosophy where it has had its strongest influence and where it has been analyzed most extensively: from within the analytic tradition in philosophy. To do this, I will look at some work in the history of philosophy concerning David Hume's (1711-1776) analysis of the self, although there is a large body of important work on personal identity in 20th-century analytic philosophy as well [2] . In this paper, then, I set out to do three things. First, I will explicate the substantive assumption and the dilemma it generates as it occurs in philosophy. Second, I will examine...