From the Conflict of the Faculties to the Reconciliation of Knowledge and Nature at Kantian University and Its Lessons for Iran's Higher Education

In the early works of the eighteenth-century German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, besides explaining the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of various sciences, has illustrated a comprehensive philosophical system and desirable metaphysical critique. In his later works, through emphasizing the concept of Nature and the growth of Reason, he has considered special and multifaceted responsibilities for the Education and the University. For him, the alignment of knowledge and Nature in the university is the main mission of this institution; a mission that is required by the Faculty of Philosophy in a legitimate conflict with the top three faculties of Theology, Law, and Medicine to bring them in line with the design of Nature. This effort, in fact, is a necessary condition for accomplishing the future metaphysics and attaining the unity of knowledge and a complete philosophical system. This article, apart from explaining the idea of "the unity of knowledge" and a model of the unity of knowledge and nature in the conflict of faculties, attempts to show the relationship of this model with the plan of a complete future philosophical and metaphysical system in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. In the following, the lessons of this approach have been considered, especially in the discussion of university independence for the reconstruction of Iran's higher education.