 Kant is quite clear that he takes reason’s demand for systematicity to play an important role in empirical inquiry. In connection with this, Kant suggests that the coherent operation of the understanding somehow requires reason’s guiding influence, particularly if we are to unify the knowledge given through the real use of the understanding into scientific theory (cf. A651–52/B679–80). To order knowledge systematically, for Kant, means to subsume or unify it under fewer and fewer principles in light of the idea of one “whole of knowledge” so that its parts are exhibited in their necessary connections (cf. 646/B674). The idea of the form of a whole of knowledge is thus said to postulate “complete unity in the knowledge obtained by the understanding, by which this knowledge is to be not a mere contingent aggregate, but a system connected according to necessary laws” (A646/B676). Having said this, it should be noted that Kant’s position is, in its details, difficult to pin down. Sometimes Kant suggests merely that we ought to seek systematic unity of knowledge, and this merely for own theoretical convenience (A771/B799-A772/B800). Other times, however, he suggests that we must assume that the nature itself conforms to our demands for systematic unity, and this necessarily, if we are to secure even an empirical criterion of truth (cf. A651–53/B679–81). The precise status of the demand for systematicity is therefore somewhat controversial.