Introduction: The Approach

Unification of any discipline, and a fortiori of more than one disciplines, best proceeds by integration of the constitutive notions, foundational principles, and approaches of the disciplines concerned. Psychology’s constitutive notion is ‘mind’. Artificial Intelligence (AI) uniquely aims to design intelligent systems (essentially to design ‘mind’), and its constitutive notion ‘designed intelligence’ is closely related to that of psychology. This chapter prepares the ground for the unified study of noémon systems by presenting the TNS (Theory of Noémon Systems) approach to it. Specifically it: Demonstrates the desirability and necessity of unifying AI and psychology. Establishes the necessity for an alternative approach that synthesises the positive elements of earlier approaches along with ignored notions and principles. Demonstrates the necessity for a new, common, constitutive notion, namely, noémon system. Discusses and formulates recommendations on choosing the appropriate methodology for building unified theories of noémon systems. Argues for a non-formal axiomatic approach against the programming and continuous systems approaches to theory construction. © Petros A. M. Gelepithis 2024.