Epistemic Units as Objective
A unit is “an existent regarded as a separate member of a group of two or more similar members.”1 Units do not exist “out there,” that is, apart from man. The unit is a product of a conceptual consciousness. In the realm of nature there are only completely separate entities acting according to their nature with their own specific properties—there is only “Bob,” “Jill,” “the Queen of England,” etc., not “Man.”
This means that to speak of units is to speak from a specifically human–or conceptual–perspective—but this does not imply subjectivism:
[…] the concept “unit” involves an act of consciousness (a selective focus, a certain way of regarding things), but […] it is not an arbitrary creation of consciousness: it is a method of identification or classification according to the attributes which a consciousness observes in reality. This method permits any number of classifications and cross-classifications: one may classify things according to their shape or color or weight or size or atomic structure; but the criterion of classification is not invented, it is perceived in reality. Thus the concept “unit” is a bridge between metaphysics and epistemology: units do not exist qua units, what exists are things, but units are things viewed by a consciousness in certain existing relationships.2