Tree of Knowledge System - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

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The Tree of Knowledge (ToK) System is a theoretical approach to the unification of psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

developed by Gregg Henriques

Gregg Henriques

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D., is an assistant professor, Combined-Integrated Doctoral Program, James Madison University, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA....

, associate professor and Director of the Combined-Integrated Doctoral Program in Clinical and School Psychology at James Madison University

James Madison University

James Madison University is a public coeducational research university located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, U.S. Founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg, the university has undergone four name changes before settling with James Madison University...

.

The outline of the system was published in 2003 in Review of General Psychology

Review of General Psychology

, is the quarterly scientific journal of the American Psychological Association Division 1: The Society for General Psychology. Review of General Psychology publishes cross-disciplinary psychological articles that are conceptual, theoretical, and methodological in nature...

. Two special issues of the Journal of Clinical Psychology

Journal of Clinical Psychology

The Journal of Clinical Psychology is a peer-reviewed medical journal published eight times a year covering psychological research, assessment, and practice. It was established in 1945...

in December 2004 and January 2005 were devoted to the elaboration and evaluation of the model. The latest evaluation of this model appeared in a December 2008 special issue of Theory & Psychology.

The Official Website on the Tree of Knowledge System claims that the ToK is

...a new unified theory of knowledge that maps the pieces of the scientific puzzle in a novel way that connects Quantum Mechanics to Sociological processes and everything in between into a coherent whole. The most novel aspect of the ToK is its visuo-spatial depiction of knowledge as consisting of four dimensions of complexity (Matter, Life, Mind, and Culture) that correspond to the behavior of four classes of objects (material objects, organisms, animals, and humans), and four classes of science (physical, biological, psychological, and social).

The "problem of psychology"

Henriques argues that the most difficult problem in psychology as a discipline is that while there is incredible diversity offered by different approaches to psychology, there is no overall consensus model of what psychology actually is.

According to the ToK System, the "problem of psychology", (as Henriques puts it), is that a clear definition, an agreed upon subject matter, and a coherent conceptual framework have eluded its students for its entire history

History of psychology

The history of psychology as a scholarly study of the mind and behavior dates back to the Ancient Greeks. There is also evidence of psychological thought in ancient Egypt. Psychology was a branch of philosophy until the 1870s, when psychology developed as an independent scientific discipline in...

. He further argues that the patent tendency of psychology has been toward theoretical and substantial fractionation and increasing insularity among the “specialties.” In other words, the discipline has fragmented into different schools of thought and methodology, with no overall framework to interpret and integrate the research of different areas. At its best, the different approaches are a strength of psychology; different approaches lead to novel ideas, and prevent psychologists from clinging to a paradigm that fails to explain a phenomenon. At its worst, adherents of one particular school cling to their beliefs concerning the relative importance of their research and disregard or are ignorant of different approaches. In most cases, individual psychologists have to determine for themselves which elements of which perspective to apply, and how to integrate them into their overall understanding.

The reason for psychology’s fractionation, according to the ToK, is that there has been no meta-theoretical

Metatheory

A metatheory or meta-theory is a theory whose subject matter is some other theory. In other words it is a theory about a theory. Statements made in the metatheory about the theory are called metatheorems....

frame that allows scholars to agree on the basic questions that need to be addressed. As such, the different schools of thought in psychology are like the blind men who each grab a part of the elephant and proclaim they have discovered its true nature. With its novel depiction of evolving dimensions of complexity, the ToK allows scholars finally to see the elephant. In his 2003 Review of General Psychology paper, Henriques used the ToK System with the attempt to clarify and align the views of B.F. Skinner and Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

. These luminaries were chosen because when one considers their influence and historical opposition, it can readily be argued that they represent two schools of thought that are the most difficult to integrate. Henriques used the meta-perspective offered by the ToK to argue how one can retain the key insights from each school of thought, identify errors and points of confusion, and integrate the insights into a coherent whole.

Cultural and personality psychologist, Michael Katzko, however critiques Henriques' position on "the problem of psychology":

There is a very good reason for skepticism regarding the repeated claims that the one unique problem of psychology, applicable across the entire discipline, has been identified and that the ToK System solves it. The reason is given by the detail with which alternatives have been worked out, be they historical studies of institutional development or critical commentaries on the rhetorical structure of psychology’s literature.

Tree of Knowledge

In one way, the Tree of Knowledge (ToK) System reflects a fairly common hierarchy of nature and of the science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

s that has been represented in one way or another since the time of Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte

Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...

, who in the seventeenth century used a hierarchical conception of nature to argue for the existence of sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

. Despite its surface agreement with a standard conception, the ToK System offers a set of ideas that have added implications for both ontology

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

and epistemology. The ontological claim made by the ToK, (and depicted pictorially above), is that cosmic evolution

Physical cosmology

Physical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution. For most of human history, it was a branch of metaphysics and religion...

consists of four separable dimensions of complexity, namely Matter

Matter

Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...

, Life

Life

Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...

, Mind

Mind

The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...

, and Culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

. The dimension of complexity argument is arguably one of the most complicated aspects of the system. Many have argued nature is hierarchically leveled; for example, a list of such levels might be subatomic particles, atoms, molecule

Molecule

A molecule is an electrically neutral group of at least two atoms held together by covalent chemical bonds. Molecules are distinguished from ions by their electrical charge...

s, cell

Cell (biology)

The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life. The Alberts text discusses how the "cellular building blocks" move to shape developing embryos....

s, organ structures, multi-celled organisms, consciousness

Consciousness

Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...

, and society

Society

A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...

is common. The ToK System embraces a view of nature as levels, but adds the notion that there are also dimensions of complexity. The difference can be seen pictorially. A view of nature as solely consisting of levels would have a single "cone" of complexity, whereas the ToK depicts four "cones". The ToK posits that a separate dimension of complexity emerges when a process of selection operates on a unit of information. Thus, according to the ToK, natural selection

Natural selection

Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....

operating on genetic combinations gives rise to the dimension of Life; behavioral selection

Radical behaviorism

Radical behaviorism is a philosophy developed by B.F. Skinner that underlies the experimental analysis of behavior approach to psychology. The term radical behaviorism applies to a particular school that emerged during the reign of behaviorism...

operating on neuron

Neuron

A neuron is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information by electrical and chemical signaling. Chemical signaling occurs via synapses, specialized connections with other cells. Neurons connect to each other to form networks. Neurons are the core components of the nervous...

al combinations gives rise to the dimension of Mind; and justification

Theory of justification

Theory of justification is a part of epistemology that attempts to understand the justification of propositions and beliefs. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas of justification, warrant, rationality, and probability...

operating on symbol

Symbol

A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...

ic combinations gives rise to Culture.

The ToK System also offers a new epistemology that Henriques believes will move toward what E.O. Wilson termed consilience

Consilience

Consilience, or the unity of knowledge , has its roots in the ancient Greek concept of an intrinsic orderliness that governs our cosmos, inherently comprehensible by logical process, a vision at odds with mystical views in many cultures that surrounded the Hellenes...

. Consilience is the interlocking of fact and theory into a coherent, holistic view of knowledge. The ToK offers alternative perspectives on how knowledge is obtained because it depicts science itself as both emerging out of culture and as a unique type of "justification system" that is based on the values of accuracy and objectivity

Objectivity (science)

Objectivity in science is a value that informs how science is practiced and how scientific truths are created. It is the idea that scientists, in attempting to uncover truths about the natural world, must aspire to eliminate personal biases, a priori commitments, emotional involvement, etc...

. A "justification system", according to Henriques, refers to any belief system that emerges that coordinates the behaviors of individual humans to human populations. The four dimensions of complexity correspond to four broad classes of science: the physical

Physical science

Physical science is an encompassing term for the branches of natural science and science that study non-living systems, in contrast to the life sciences...

, biological

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

, psychological

Psychology

and social sciences.

Matter

See Henriques' lecture slides on Matter

The dimension of matter

Matter

refers to the set of material objects and their behaviors through time. In accordance with modern cosmology

Cosmology

Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...

, matter is theorized to have emerged out of a pure energy singularity

Gravitational singularity

A gravitational singularity or spacetime singularity is a location where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system...

at the Big Bang

Big Bang

The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...

. Space and time were also born at such a point. Nonliving material objects range in complexity from subatomic particle

Subatomic particle

In physics or chemistry, subatomic particles are the smaller particles composing nucleons and atoms. There are two types of subatomic particles: elementary particles, which are not made of other particles, and composite particles...

s to large organic molecules. The physical sciences (i.e., physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

, chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

, geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

, astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

) describe the behavior of material objects.

Life

See Henriques' lecture slides on Life

The dimension of life refers to organism

Organism

In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...

s and their behaviors through time. Living objects are considered a unique subset of material objects. Just as quantum particles form the fundamental units of material complexity, gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

s are the fundamental units of living information. Although many questions about the emergence of life remain unanswered, in accordance with modern biology, the ToK posits that natural selection operating on genetic combinations through time is the unified theory of biology and forms the foundational understanding for the emergence of organic complexity.

Mind

See Henriques' lecture slides on Mind

Mind

in the ToK System refers to the set of mental behaviors. Mental behaviors are behaviors of animals mediated by the nervous system

Nervous system

The nervous system is an organ system containing a network of specialized cells called neurons that coordinate the actions of an animal and transmit signals between different parts of its body. In most animals the nervous system consists of two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous...

that produce a functional effect on the animal-environment relationship. As such, Mind is essentially synonymous with what behavioral psychologists have meant when they use the term behavior. Thus, a fly avoiding a fly swatter, a rat pushing a bar or a human getting a drink of water are all mental behaviors. Mind is not synonymous with sentience

Sentience

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...

or the capacity for mental experience, although such processes are presumed to emerge in the mental dimension. Cognition

Cognition

In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...

, in the broad sense of the term (i.e., as meaning neuro-information processing) is seen as covert mental behavior, whereas change between the animal and the environment is defined as overt mental behavior. Thus, by defining mind as mental behavior, Henriques argues that the ToK System provides a way to bridge the epistemological differences between cognitive

Cognitive science

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...

and behavioral science

Behaviorism

Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective , is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking, and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior...

Culture

See Henriques' lecture slides on Culture

Culture in the ToK System refers to the set of sociolinguistic

Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society...

behaviors, which range from large scale nation states to individual human justifications for particular actions. Just as genetic information processing is associated with the Life dimension and neuronal information processing associated with the Mind dimension, symbolic information processing emerges with the Cultural dimension.

Quantum Gravity

See Henriques' lecture slides on quantum gravity

Quantum Gravity refers to the imagined merger between the twin pillars of physical science which are quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...

, the study of the microscopic (e.g., electrons), and general relativity

General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...

, the science of the macroscopic (e.g., galaxies

Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...

). Currently, these two great domains of science cannot be effectively interwoven into a single, physical Theory of Everything

Theory of everything

A theory of everything is a putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle....

. Yet progress is being made, most notably through string theory

String theory

String theory is an active research framework in particle physics that attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. It is a contender for a theory of everything , a manner of describing the known fundamental forces and matter in a mathematically complete system...

, loop quantum gravity

Loop quantum gravity

Loop quantum gravity , also known as loop gravity and quantum geometry, is a proposed quantum theory of spacetime which attempts to reconcile the theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity...

, black hole thermodynamics

Black hole thermodynamics

In physics, black hole thermodynamics is the area of study that seeks to reconcile the laws of thermodynamics with the existence of black hole event horizons...

and the study of the early universe. Some of the difficulties combining these two pillars of physical science are philosophical in nature and it is possible that the macro view of knowledge offered by the ToK may eventually aid in the construction of a coherent theory of quantum gravity. The reason the ToK might help is that it locates scientific knowledge in relationship to the physical universe.

The Modern Synthesis

See Henriques' lecture slides on the Modern Synthesis

The Modern Synthesis refers to the merger of genetics with natural selection

Natural selection

which occurred in the 1930s and 1940s and offers a reasonably complete framework for understanding the emergence of biological complexity. Although there remain significant gaps in biological knowledge surrounding questions such as the origin of life and the emergence of sexual reproduction, the modern synthesis represents the most complete and well-substantiated joint point.

Behavioral Investment Theory

See Henriques' lecture slides on BIT

Behavioral Investment Theory (BIT) is proposed as a merger of the selection science of behaviorism

Behaviorism

with the information science of cognitive neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition, with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the brain...

(notice the parallel with the modern synthesis). BIT posits that the nervous system evolved as an increasingly flexible computational control system that coordinates the behavioral expenditure of energy of the animal as a whole. Expenditure of behavioral energy is theorized to be computed on an investment value system built evolutionarily through natural selection operating on genetic combinations and ontogenetically

Ontogeny

Ontogeny is the origin and the development of an organism – for example: from the fertilized egg to mature form. It covers in essence, the study of an organism's lifespan...

through behavioral selection operating on neural combinations. As such, the current behavioral investments of the animal are conceptualized as the joint product of the two vectors of phylogeny and ontogeny

Ontogeny

Ontogeny is the origin and the development of an organism – for example: from the fertilized egg to mature form. It covers in essence, the study of an organism's lifespan...

. A unique element of BIT is that it finds a core of agreement and builds bridges between five brain-behavior paradigms: (1) cognitive science

Cognitive science

; (2) behavioral science; (3) evolutionary theory and genetics; (4) neuroscience; and (5) cybernetics

Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...

/systems theory

Systems theory

Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...

.

David C. Geary

David C. Geary

David C. Geary is a notable United States cognitive developmental and evolutionary psychologist with interests in mathematical learning and sex differences...

noted the similarities between his "Motivation-to-Control" hypothesis and Henriques' Behavioral Investment Theory, which were developed independently of each other. Furthermore, Geary suggested that his model "seem[ed] to fill in many of the proximate mechanisms

Proximate causation

In philosophy a proximate cause is an event which is closest to, or immediately responsible for causing, some observed result. This exists in contrast to a higher-level ultimate cause which is usually thought of as the "real" reason something occurred.* Example: Why did the ship sink?** Proximate...

and evolutionary pressures that define the life-mind joint point, and provided a framework for further development of the mind-culture joint point."

Justification Hypothesis

See Henriques' lecture slides on the JH

The Justification Hypothesis (JH) is a novel proposal that allows for both the understanding of the evolution of culture and for identifying what makes humans distinct animals. A basic initial claim of the JH is that the process of justification is a crucial component of human mental behavior at both the individual and societal level. Unlike all other animals, humans everywhere ask for and give explanations for their actions. Arguments, debates, moral dictates, rationalizations, and excuses all involve the process of explaining why one’s claims, thoughts or actions are warranted. In virtually every form of social exchange, from warfare to politics to family struggles to science, humans are constantly justifying their behavioral investments to themselves and others.

The JH can be stated succinctly as follows: The evolution of language gave rise to the problem of justification, and this evolutionary pressure ultimately resulted in the human self-consciousness system and human culture. The JH carries with it three fundamental postulates.

The first is that the evolution of language must have created the problem of justification, which is the problem of explaining one’s self to others in a justifiable manner.
The second postulate is that the human self-consciousness system can be understood as a “justification filter”. This second claim links the evolutionary analysis with key insights from psychodynamic theory. Specifically, psychodynamic theory posits that socially unjustifiable impulses are inhibited and socially justifiable reasons are given for actions taken.
The third postulate is that culture can be understood as large scale justification systems that coordinate the behavior of human populations. Cultural systems are seen to evolve much in the same way as organisms do in biological evolution: there is a process of variation, selection and retention of belief systems.

How the ToK solves the problem of Psychology

The problem of psychology, according to the ToK, is its conceptual incoherence, which Henriques identifies by the following: There is no agreed upon definition. There is no agreed upon subject matter. There is a proliferation of overlapping and redundant concepts. There are a large number of paradigms with fundamentally different epistemological assumptions. Specialization continues to be increasingly emphasized at the expense of generalization and thus the problem of fragmentation only grows.

When the various conceptions of psychology (e.g., behavioral, humanistic, cognitive) are viewed through the lens of the ToK System, psychology spans two different dimensions of complexity: the mental and the cultural. In other words, the discipline has historically spanned two fundamentally separate problems: the problem of animal behavior in general, and the problem of human behavior at the individual level.

If, as previously thought, nature simply consisted of levels of complexity, psychology would not be crisply defined in relationship to biology or the social sciences. And, indeed, it is frequently suggested that psychology exists in an amorphous space between biology and the social sciences. However, with its dimension of complexity depiction, the ToK System suggests that psychology can be crisply defined as the science of mind, which is the third dimension of complexity. Furthermore, because human behavior exists in the fourth dimension, psychology must be divided into two broad scientific domains of psychological formalism and human psychology.

Psychological formalism is defined as the science of mind and corresponds to the behavior of animal objects. Human psychology is considered to be a unique subset of psychological formalism that deals with human behavior at the level of the individual. Because human behavior is immersed in the larger socio-cultural context (level four in the ToK System), human psychology is considered a hybrid discipline that merges the pure science of psychology with the social sciences. It is important to point out that there are other disciplines the ToK System would classify as “hybrids.” Molecular genetics, for example, is a hybrid between chemistry and biology and neuroscience is a hybrid between biology and psychology. As with Henriques' proposed conception of human psychology, both of these disciplines adopt an object level perspective (molecular and cellular, respectively) on phenomena that simultaneously exist as part of meta-level system processes (life and mind, respectively).

Though David A. F. Haaga "congratulate[d] Dr. Henriques' ambitious, scholarly, provocative paper", and "found the Tree of Knowledge taxonomy, the theoretical joint points, the evolutionary history, and the levels of emergent properties highly illuminating", he asks the rhetorical questions,

If it is so difficult to define terms such as 'psychology' with such precision, why bother? Why not just agree that we all have at least a rough idea of what psychology is, and take the rest of the afternoon off? After all, if theoretical or empirical work improves our understanding of some aspect of the world or our fellow people, or improves our ability to help people enhance their physical or emotional well being, what difference does it make whether this work is considered a part of psychology, of cognitive science, of behavioral neuroscience, of public health, or what have you? This raises the question of what definitions in general are good for.

In a similar vein, Scott O. Lilienfeld, who described Henriques' effort as "thoughtful", contended that psychology is "an inherently fuzzy concept that resists precise definition" and that "attempts to define psychology [would be] likely to hamper rather than foster consilience across disciplines". Lilienfield went on further to suggest that the scientist-practitioner gap in psychology lies not in definitional issues, but in different "epistemic attitudes" between these two groups. He stated that scientists have an epistemic attitude of empiricism

Empiricism

Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...

, (where questions regarding human nature are settled by scientific evidence), and that practitioners have an epistemic attitude of romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

, (where questions of human nature are settled by intuition). Lilienfeld suggested that the solution to the scientist-practitioner gulf isn't definitional, but in "train[ing] future clinical scientists to appreciate the proper places of romanticism and empiricism within science".

Consciousness and Human Behavior

A frequent question and point of confusion in the ToK System is the definition and meaning of consciousness

Consciousness

. As mentioned above, mind is not synonymous with consciousness. And, to understand consciousness from a ToK vantage point, it is crucial to recognize that the term is often ambiguous in its meaning. Two primary meanings are sentience

Sentience

, which is the capacity for mental experience and self-awareness

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals...

, which is the capacity to be aware of one’s awareness. Sentience is conceptualized as a “level 3” phenomena, possessed by many animals other than humans and is defined as a “perceived” electro-neuro-chemical representation of animal-environment relations. The ingredient of neurological behavior that allows for the emergence of mental experience is considered the “hard” problem of conscious and the ToK System does not address this question explicitly. In contrast, through the Justification Hypothesis (see below), the ToK System involves a very direct analysis of the other issue of consciousness, that of self-awareness

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals...

.

Another frequent question that is raised is “Where does individual human behavior fall on the ToK?” To analyze human behavior from the context of the ToK, one uses the ToK like a prism to separate the dimensions of behavior into physiochemical, biogenetic, neuropsychological and sociolinguistic. Thus if we imagine a conversation between a husband and wife as follows:

Wife: “You are late again.”

Husband: “Please not now. It was a stressful day and traffic was bad and you know if work needs to be done, I can’t just leave it.”

The words represent the sociolinguistic dimension and are understood as a function of justification. Justification systems are seen both at the level of individual, micro-social and societal (i.e., the context of justification in which men work and women stay at home). The actions of the husband and wife in terms of facial expression

Facial expression

A facial expression one or more motions or positions of the muscles in the skin. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information among humans, but also occur...

, body movement, etc. are seen as the mental dimension and are understood as a function of behavioral investment. The physiological make up of the organ systems and cells of each body is seen as the biogenetic dimension. Finally, the position, temperature, molecular make up is seen as the physiochemical dimension. Each of the more basic dimensions represent conditions of possibility that allow for the emergence of the higher dimension of process. Thus, insufficient oxygen disrupts organic processes which in turn renders neuropsychological and sociolinguistic processes impossible.

Toward the Integration of Human Knowledge

As stated above, the ToK System proposes a new epistemology with the goal of moving academic knowledge toward what E.O. Wilson termed consilience

Consilience

. Consilience is the interlocking of fact and theory into a coherent, holistic view of knowledge. Henriques argues that the ToK affords new perspectives on how knowledge is obtained because it depicts how science emerges out of culture and that the four dimensions of complexity correspond to four broad classes of science: the physical, biological, psychological and social sciences.

Henriques further argues that developing such a system for integrating knowledge is not just an academic enterprise. He suggests that in an increasingly complex world, the fragmented state of knowledge can be seen as one of the most pressing social problems of our time. Henriques also believes that history seems to attest that the absence of a collective worldview ostensibly condemns humanity to an endless series of conflicts that inevitably stem from incompatible, partially correct, locally situated justification systems. Thus, from Henriques' perspective, there are good reasons for believing that if there was a shared, general background of explanation, humanity might be able to achieve much greater levels of harmonious relations.

In a 2008 article on the ToK, Henriques cites Oliver Reiser's 1958 call for unifying scientific knowledge that Henriques implies is similar in theme to the ToK:

In this time of divisive tendencies within and between the nations, races, religions, sciences and humanities, synthesis must become the great magnet which orients us all…[Yet] scientists have not done what is possible toward integrating bodies of knowledge created by science into a unified interpretation of man, his place in nature, and his potentialities for creating the good society. Instead, they are entombing us in dark and meaningless catacombs of learning.

With its depiction of the dimensions of complexity and interlocking theoretical joint points, Henriques' believes that his ToK System offers new avenues that might allow scholars to meet Reiser’s call for academic synthesis. Henriques, like Reiser, believes that with a shared sense of purpose and a common background of explanation, people might yet be able to integrate bodies of knowledge into a unified interpretation of humanity, with humanity's place in nature and its potentialities for creating the good society.

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The "problem of psychology"

Tree of Knowledge

Matter

Life

Mind

Culture

Quantum Gravity

The Modern Synthesis

Behavioral Investment Theory

Justification Hypothesis

How the ToK solves the problem of Psychology

Consciousness and Human Behavior

Toward the Integration of Human Knowledge

See also

External links