History of Philosophy - Modern

a) shift from Medieval syntheses holding together faith/reason, spirit-mind-body, etc. into a dualistic logic which splits faith // reason, spirit-mind // body - and the moral (religious and "philosophical") // physical (as the mechanistic/deterministic object of the new science);

b) these splits become most fully articulate in Hobbes and Descartes - issuing in the characteristic projects of  modernity, i.e.,

either: how to reconcile into a new synthesis the various elements now split in modern philosophy,
[Descartes-Spinoza-Leibniz- Berkeley-|- Kant-Hegel] and/
or: how to develop a new understanding of the world which will allow us to live in a world now stripped of those elements which have traditionally given it meaning and significance
[Machiavelli-Locke-Hume-|- Comte-Marx-Kierkegaard-Nietzsche]
 
c) Modern philosophy characteristically focuses on epistemology  - the question of knowledge - and a central expression of this development involves the following epistemological split:
 
[Anglo{-American}] empiricism - the view that reliable knowledge derives primarily from senses:
(Bacon) - Locke - Hume
[Continental] idealism - the view that reliable knowledge is essentially dependent on the mind and its activities:
Descartes - Spinoza - Berkeley
 
Both the empiricist and idealist traditions, we will see, run into logical dead-ends - an apparent either/or, with both sides of the dichotomy (represented by Hume and Berkeley) involving claims so counter-intuitive that they seem absurd.
In particular, Hume's radical empiricism destroys not only older, more traditional views of the self (as unitary, as "substance," etc.)
- thereby undermining traditional philosophical and religious views of humans as moral (free) beings and/or as creatures of faith;
but also
more "modern" views of nature as a perfectly ordered, deterministic, cause-effect mechanism which can be known fully through the new sciences.
In short, both traditional humanity and morality and the new science are imperiled by Hume's radical empiricism.

d) Kant will then provide an initially epistemological resolution of these  dilemmas - a resolution which is synthetic in character, i.e., it will hold together both empiricist and idealist views, as it further saves both the new science and its picture of nature and the traditional philosophical/religious conception of human beings as moral/free beings.

e) After Kant, Hegel will offer what he thinks to be more satisfying and complete synthesis - but both philosophers, and with them, systematic philosophy per se, will be assailed by a series of radical critiques:

(Comte)-Marx || Kierkegaard - Nietzsche
Most broadly, modern philosophy thus presents us with the question:
in Nietzsche's metaphor, can we leave the land (the  Medieval "cozy nest" of a unified, meaningful worldview) on our little ship, now free from superstition, outmoded beliefs, seemingly unnecessary restrictions, etc. - and successfully launch out into new seas of scientific discoveries, new technological powers, individual freedoms from convention and tradition, etc.?
A central expression of this question is: in order to achieve these new discoveries, powers, and freedoms, we introduce a new dualism into our thinking - a dualism which issues precisely in the sorts of problematic dichotomies outlined above.  Nietzsche's question can thus be understood in part as:
having turned to a dualistic logic whose splits are both attractive (freedom, discovery, power) and repulsive (the loss of meaning and freedom in a mechanistic universe, the abuse of technological power in the destruction of the environment in industrialization, the development of weapons of mass destruction, etc.) -
can philosophy restore into a new synthesis what it has so effectively sundered in "modernity" - and/or find new ways of understanding and living meaningful lives in a world now understood primarily through natural science and mathematics?
And/or: will the upshot of the modern experiment - the launch away from an essentially religiously-centered but unified worldview leave us irrevocably lost, condemned to meaninglessness, unfreedom, "mere" "nature"?