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]