The concept of the system and main paradigmatic foundations of the system approach

The article studies the concept of the system as a fundamental for rational philosophical and scientific discourse. The increasing importance of systematic constructions in philosophical thought and later in scientific thought is demonstrated through the historical stages of the formation of systematic knowledge, which, in turn, in different periods could be considered from ontological, epistemological or methodological positions. Attempts to use the heuristic potential of a system thinking for construction of interdisciplinary methodologies and metatheories are shown on the example of the works of A. A. Bogdanov and L. Von Bertalanfi. The strengths and weaknesses of such approaches; the issues that were raised by the system movement of the XX century, and the problems that it faced, are analyzed. The influence of the system approaches of the XX century on the further development of interdisciplinary areas of modern science is also indicated.