Toward A New Vision Of Unified Psychology: Tree Of Knowledge System

There has been concerned about the division of psychological knowledge, as well as a range of issues related to this, such as the nature of psychology, the unification of psychology, many scholars from domestic and foreign are committed to the research on this issue. In this context, professor Henriques proposed a new unified theory of psychology——ToK (Tree of Knowledge) system. Different from the previous unified theory, the theory is not concerned with the internal discipline of psychology itself, but referred to it from a macro perspective, not only deals with psychology but also with the whole of natural and social sciences. ToK system is a grand and complex unifying framework, which defines four levels (physical, life, mind, cultural) connected in a tree-like structure, such that one level grows out of the level of below.Henriques highlights two of psychology's most prominent characteristics: its conceptual incoherence and the fact that, more than other discipline, it connects to each of the great branches of learning. He thinks ToK system can diagnose psychology's epistemological woes and address the difficulties of definition. He provide an overarching conception that clearly defines the proper subject matter of the field and show how it exists in relationship to the physical, biological, and social sciences. Through the use of the ToK system, he argues that the science of psychology has traditionally spanned two separate, but intimately related problems. The first domain is psychological formalism, which is defined as the science of mind, corresponds to animal behavior, and consists of the basic psychological sciences. The second domain is human psychology, which is defined as the science of human behavior at individual level and is proposed as a hybrid that exists between psychological formalism and the social sciences.Another key element of the system is that each of the four dimensions is associated with a theoretical joint point that provides the causal explanatory framework for its emergence. There are two crucial theoretical joint point: Behavioral Investment Theory (BIT) as the Life-to-Mind joint point and the Justification Hypothesis (JH) as the Mind-to-Culture joint point. Behavioral Investment Theory merges Skinner's fundamental insight of behavioral selection with cognitive neuroscience in a manner that explains how Mind evolved out of Life. The JH anchors fundamental Freudian observations to basic psychological science and provides the framework for understanding the evolutionary changes in mind that gave rise to human culture.To further understanding the ToK system thoroughly, this article will compare it with the theory of psychological behaviorism, which proposed by Staats, partly because Staats is committed to the unified theory of psychology for decades and formed his own theory and ideology, and Henriques is also endorsed Staats in certain point of view. Here my purpose is to verify whether the unified theory proposed by Henriques is generated based on the psychological behaviorsm, whether it is the development and continuity of the unified theory of Staats.This article presents the comments of all the scholars, including the endorsement of the theory, and critical opinions. When proposed a new theory, there must be some various comments, of course, this is the only way to promote the development and improvement of this theory. Professor Henriques also hopes that we can make constructive comment about his unified theory. The purpose of this paper is to take this opportunity to connect with many scholars to share this theory to be inspired to learn, thus contributing to a unified theory of psychology.