Filosofare per sistemi

This contribution will look into the relations between system, method and forms of scientific rationality over the history of modern and contemporary philosophy. At its centre lie the problematic ties between metaphysics and the theory of ideas. Philosophical thought does not result from a singular intuition, but is rather the product of the historical and social determinations that shape it. Thus, retracing the two great theoretical frameworks of the 17th and 18th centuries – on the one hand the Cartesian order of reasons, and on the other the Baconian ideal of an encyclopaedic tree of knowledge – I trace the forms of the critical outlook that specifically belongs to the history of modern philosophy. The rise of the history of philosophy as an autonomous academic discipline brought with it new forms of enunciation and intelligibility, combining the logical order of reasons with historical-critical analysis.