Theoretical Unification as a Practical Project Kant and the Tree of Knowledge System

ABSTRACT. In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant (1787/1998) suggested that scientific and humanistic interpretations of human existence can and should be woven into ‘a single philosophical system ’ (p. 695). Yet, Kant was well aware of the profound tension between theoretical analyses of the natural order and practical accounts of our experience as moral agents. In this essay, I argue that the Tree of Knowledge System proposed by Henriques (2003, 2004, 2008) has the scope and conceptual power necessary to account for the emergence of the Kantian tension between theoretical and practical rea-son. Following Kant, however, I maintain that this tension cannot be ade-quately resolved on a theoretical plane. Rather, a holistic account of the cultural-person-as-a-whole requires the subordination of theoretical to prac-tical reason. Concretely, this implies that the quest for theoretical unification cannot proceed without concomitant evaluations of the various justification systems that guide the work of scholars in the natural sciences, the social sci-ences, and the humanities