Concept
Idea
Overview
An idea (from the Greek word: ἰδέα (idea), meaning 'a form, or a pattern') is the result of thought. Although the word is used in common usage, in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of being. The capacity to create and understand the meaning of ideas is considered to be an essential and defining feature of human beings.
An idea arises in a reflexive, spontaneous manner, even without thinking or serious reflection, for example, when we talk about the idea of a person or a place. A new or an original idea can often lead to innovation. Our actions are based upon beliefs, beliefs are patterns or organized sets of ideas.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Idea is discussed.
Reflection is the necessary copy or repetition of the originally presented world of perception, but it is a special kind of copy in an entirely different material. Thus concepts may quite properly be called ideas of ideas. The principle of sufficient reason has here also a special form.
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; the book is about it; author linked in the graph; opens on it
As the idea is (a) a process, it follows that such an expression for the Absolute as _unity_ of thought and being, of finite and infinite, &c. is false; for unity expresses an abstract and merely quiescent identity. As the Idea is (b) subjectivity, it follows that the expression is equally false on another account. That unity of which it speaks expresses a merely virtual or underlying presence of the genuine unity.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; opens on it
1. A collective idea is one Idea. Besides these complex ideas of several SINGLE substances, as of man, horse, gold, violet, apple, &c., the mind hath also complex COLLECTIVE ideas of substances; which I so call, because such ideas are made up of many…
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
And, finally, they are transcendent, and overstep the limits of all experiences, in which, consequently, no object can ever be presented that would be perfectly adequate to a transcendental idea. When we use the word idea, we say, as regards its object (an object of the pure understanding), a great deal, but as regards its subject (that is, in respect of its reality under conditions of experience), exceedingly…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
The idea of an object is an essential part of the belief of it, but not the whole. We conceive many things which we do not believe. In order then to discover more fully the nature of belief, or the qualities of those ideas we assent to, let us weigh the following considerations.
David Hume, Philosophical Works, v. 1
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Idea
- Max Stirner
- George Berkeley
- John Locke
- The Order of Things
- Eduard von Hartmann
- Speusippus
- Colin Murray Turbayne
- Aeon (magazine)
- Carlo Cattaneo
- Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar
- Aleksei Losev
Related ideas
- Empiricism
- Innatism
- Philosophy
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
- Creativity
- James Mark Baldwin
- Immanuel Kant
- Intellectual property
- Ancient Greek
- Classical physics
- Idealism
- Analytic philosophy
- John Locke
- Karl Popper
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Law
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Understanding
- Ontology
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Walter Benjamin
- Plato
- Property
- Perception
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Deconstruction.