Abstract

The aim of this article is to offer a contribution to our understanding of the way in which reason appropriated the idea of system at the beginning of the modernity and made from it one of its emblematical forms of expression. I will start with seminal remarks on the topic from Martin Heidegger, and will then move to the idea of the system in the works of René Descartes, the pathfinder of modern philosophy. After commenting on some Cartesian ideas, I will outline six points of support for and development of Heidegger’s conception about the system of philosophy and its roots in modern science.