From en.wikipedia.org:
[Mental image or concept] [Ideas] right In philosophy and in common usage, an
IDEA (from the Greek word: ἰδέα (idea), meaning 'a form, or a pattern') is the
result of thought.[1] Also 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.[2]
** Etymology
The word _idea_ comes from Greek [grc], [romanized :] [grc], [form, pattern],
from the root of [grc] [grc], [to see].[3]
** History
The argument over the underlying nature of ideas was opened by Plato, whose
exposition of his theory of forms—which recurs and accumulates over the course
of his many dialogs—appropriates and adds a new sense to the Greek word for
things that are "seen" (re. εἶδος) that highlights those elements of
perception which are encountered without material or objective reference
available to the eyes (re. ἰδέα). As this argument was disseminated the word
"idea" began to take on connotations that would be more familiarly associated
with the term today. In the fifth book of his _Republic_, Plato defines
philosophy as the love of this formal (as opposed to visual) way of seeing.
Plato advanced the theory that perceived but immaterial objects of awareness
constitute a realm of deathless forms or ideas from which the material world
emanates. Aristotle challenged Plato in this area, positing that the
phenomenal world of ideas arises as mental composites of remembered
observations. Though it is anachronistic to apply these terms to thinkers
from antiquity, it clarifies the argument between Plato and Aristotle if we
call Plato an idealist thinker and Aristotle an empiricist thinker.
This antagonism between empiricism and idealism generally characterizes the
dynamism of the argument over the theory of ideas up to the present. This
schism in theory has never been resolved to the satisfaction of thinkers from
both sides of the disagreement and is represented today in the split between
analytic and continental schools of philosophy. Persistent contradictions
between classical physics and quantum mechanics may be pointed to as a rough
analogy for the gap between the two schools of thought.
** Philosophy
*** Plato
[Theory of Forms] Plato in Ancient Greece was one of the earliest philosophers
to provide a detailed discussion of ideas and of the thinking process (in
Plato's Greek the word _idea_ carries a rather different sense of our modern
English term). Plato argued in dialogues such as the _Phaedo_, _Symposium_,
_Republic_, and _Timaeus_ that there is a realm of ideas or forms (_eidei_),
which exist independently of anyone who may have thoughts on these ideas, and
it is the ideas which distinguish mere opinion from knowledge, for unlike
material things which are transient and liable to contrary properties, ideas
are unchanging and nothing but just what they are. Consequently, Plato seems
to assert forcefully that material things can only be the objects of opinion;
real knowledge can only be had of unchanging ideas. Furthermore, ideas for
Plato appear to serve as universals; consider the following passage from the
_Republic_: {{Blockquote| "We both assert that there are," I said, "and
distinguish in speech, many fair things, many good things, and so on for each
kind of thing."
"Yes, so we do."
"And we also assert that there is a fair itself, a good itself, and so on for
all things that we set down as many. Now, again, we refer to them as one
_idea_ of each as though the _idea_ were one; and we address it as that which
really _is_."
"That's so."
"And, moreover, we say that the former are seen, but not intellected, while
the _ideas_ are intellected but not seen."|Plato|Bk. VI 507b-c}}
*** René Descartes
Descartes often wrote of the meaning of the _idea_ as an image or
representation, often but not necessarily "in the mind", which was well known
in the vernacular. Despite Descartes' invention of the non-Platonic use of
the term, he at first followed this vernacular use.<sup>b</sup> In his
_Meditations on First Philosophy_ he says, "Some of my thoughts are like
images of things, and it is to these alone that the name 'idea' properly
belongs." He sometimes maintained that ideas were innate[4] and uses of the
term _idea_ diverge from the original primary scholastic use. He provides
multiple non-equivalent definitions of the term, uses it to refer to as many
as six distinct kinds of entities, and divides _ideas_ inconsistently into
various genetic categories.[5] For him knowledge took the form of ideas and
philosophical investigation is devoted to the consideration of these entities.
*** John Locke
John Locke's use of idea stands in striking contrast to Plato's.[6] In his
Introduction to An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke defines _idea_
as "that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is the
object of the understanding when a man thinks, I have used it to express
whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the
mind can be employed about in thinking; And I could not avoid frequently using
it."[7] He said he regarded the contribution offered in his essay as necessary
to examine our own abilities and discern what objects our understandings were,
or were not, fitted to deal with. In this style of ideal conception other
outstanding figures followed in his footsteps — Hume and Kant in the 18th
century, Arthur Schopenhauer in the 19th century, and Bertrand Russell, Ludwig
Wittgenstein, and Karl Popper in the 20th century. Locke always believed in
the _good sense_ — not pushing things to extremes and while taking fully into
account the plain facts of the matter. He prioritized common-sense ideas that
struck him as "good-tempered, moderate, and down-to-earth."
As John Locke studied humans in his work "An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding" he continually referenced Descartes for ideas as he asked this
fundamental question: "When we are concerned with something about which we
have no certain knowledge, what rules or standards should guide how confident
we allow ourselves to be that our opinions are right?"[8] Put in another way,
he inquired into how humans might verify their ideas, and considered the
distinctions between different types of ideas. Locke found that an idea "can
simply mean some sort of brute experience."[9] He shows that there are "No
innate principles in the mind."[10] Thus, he concludes that "our ideas are all
experienced in nature."[11] An experience can either be a sensation or a
reflection: "consider whether there are any innate ideas in the mind before
any are brought in by the impression from sensation or reflection."<ref
name="ReferenceA"/> Therefore, an idea was an experience in which the human
mind apprehended something.
In a Lockean view, there are really two types of ideas: complex and simple.
Simple ideas are the building blocks for more complex ideas, and "While the
mind is wholly passive in the reception of simple ideas, it is very active in
the building of complex ideas…"[12] Complex ideas, therefore, can either be
_modes_, _substances_, or _relations_.
_Modes_ combine simpler ideas in order to convey new information. For
instance, David Banach [13] gives the example of beauty as a mode. He points
to combinations of color and form as qualities constitutive of this mode.
_Substances_, however, are distinct from modes. _Substances_ convey the
underlying formal unity of certain objects, such as dogs, cats, or tables.
_Relations_ represent the relationship between two or more ideas that contain
analogous elements to one another without the implication of underlying formal
unity. A painting or a piece of music, for example, can both be called 'art'
without belonging to the same substance. They are related as forms of art
(the term 'art' in this illustration would be a 'mode of relations'). In this
way, Locke concluded that the formal ambiguity around ideas he initially
sought to clarify had been resolved.
*** David Hume
Hume differs from Locke by limiting _idea_ to only one of two possible types
of perception. The other one is called "impression", and is more lively:
these are perceptions we have "when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or
hate, or desire, or will." _Ideas_ are more complex and are built upon these
more basic and more grounded perceptions.[14]<ref name=EB1911>[wstitle=Idea
][15] Hume shared with Locke the basic empiricist premise that it is only from
life experiences (whether their own or others') that humans' knowledge of the
existence of anything outside of themselves can be ultimately derived, that
they shall carry on doing what they are prompted to do by their emotional
drives of varying kinds. In choosing the means to those ends, they shall
follow their accustomed associations of ideas.<sup>d</sup> Hume has contended
and defended the notion that "reason alone is merely the 'slave of the
passions'."[16][17]
*** Immanuel Kant
left Immanuel Kant defines _ideas_ by distinguishing them from _concepts_.
_Concepts_ arise by the compositing of experience into abstract categorial
representations of presumed or encountered empirical objects whereas the
origin of _ideas,_ for Kant, is a priori to experience. _Regulative ideas_,
for example, are ideals that one must tend towards, but by definition may not
be completely realized as objects of empirical experience. Liberty, according
to Kant, is an _idea_ whereas "tree" (as an abstraction covering all species
of trees) is a _concept_. The autonomy of the rational and universal subject
is opposed to the determinism of the empirical subject.[18] Kant felt that it
is precisely in knowing its limits that philosophy exists. The business of
philosophy he thought was not to give rules, but to analyze the private
judgement of good common sense.<sup>e</sup>
*** Rudolf Steiner
Whereas Kant declares limits to knowledge ("we can never know the thing in
itself"), in his epistemological work, Rudolf Steiner sees _ideas_ as "objects
of experience" which the mind apprehends, much as the eye apprehends light.
In _Goethean Science_ (1883), he declares, "Thinking ... is no more and no
less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye of
perception perceives colors and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas."
He holds this to be the premise upon which Goethe made his natural-scientific
observations.
*** Wilhelm Wundt
Wundt widens the term from Kant's usage to include _conscious representation
of some object or process of the external world_. In so doing, he includes
not only ideas of memory and imagination, but also perceptual processes,
whereas other psychologists confine the term to the first two groups.<ref
name=EB1911/> One of Wundt's main concerns was to investigate conscious
processes in their own context by experiment and introspection. He regarded
both of these as _exact methods_, interrelated in that experimentation created
optimal conditions for introspection. Where the experimental method failed,
he turned to other _objectively valuable aids_, specifically to _those
products of cultural communal life which lead one to infer particular mental
motives. Outstanding among these are speech, myth, and social custom._ Wundt
designed the basic mental activity apperception — a unifying function which
should be understood as an activity of the will. Many aspects of his
empirical physiological psychology are used today. One is his principles of
mutually enhanced contrasts and of assimilation and dissimilation (i.e. in
color and form perception and his advocacy of _objective_ methods of
expression and of recording results, especially in language. Another is the
principle of heterogony of ends — that multiply motivated acts lead to
unintended side effects which in turn become motives for new actions.[19]
*** Charles Sanders Peirce
C. S. Peirce published the first full statement of pragmatism in his
important works "Basa Sunda: How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1878) and "Basa
Sunda: The Fixation of Belief" (1877).[20] In "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" he
proposed that a _clear idea_ (in his study he uses concept and _idea_ as
synonymic) is defined as one, when it is apprehended such as it will be
recognized wherever it is met, and no other will be mistaken for it. If it
fails of this clearness, it is said to be obscure. He argued that to
understand an idea clearly we should ask ourselves what difference its
application would make to our evaluation of a proposed solution to the problem
at hand. Pragmatism (a term he appropriated for use in this context), he
defended, was a method for ascertaining the meaning of terms (as a theory of
meaning). The originality of his ideas is in their rejection of what was
accepted as a view and understanding of knowledge as impersonal facts which
had been accepted by scientists for some 250 years. Peirce contended that we
acquire knowledge as _participants_, not as _spectators_. He felt "the real",
sooner or later, is composed of information that has been acquired through
ideas and knowledge and ordered by the application of logical reasoning. The
rational distinction of the empirical object is not prior to its perception by
a knowledgeable subject, in other words. He also published many papers on
logic in relation to _ideas_.
*** G. F. Stout and J. M. Baldwin
G. F. Stout and J. M. Baldwin, in the _Dictionary of Philosophy and
Psychology_, define the _idea_ as "the reproduction with a more or less
adequate image, of an object not actually present to the senses." [21] They
point out that an idea and a perception are by various authorities contrasted
in various ways. "Difference in degree of intensity", "comparative absence of
bodily movement on the part of the subject", "comparative dependence on mental
activity", are suggested by psychologists as characteristic of an idea as
compared with a perception.<ref name=EB1911/>
An idea, in the narrower and generally accepted sense of a mental
reproduction, is frequently composite. That is, as in the example given above
of the idea of a chair, a great many objects, differing materially in detail,
all call a single idea. When a man, for example, has obtained an idea of
chairs in general by comparison with which he can say "This is a chair, that
is a stool", he has what is known as an "abstract idea" distinct from the
reproduction in his mind of any particular chair (see abstraction).
Furthermore, a complex idea may not have any corresponding physical object,
though its particular constituent elements may severally be the reproductions
of actual perceptions. Thus the idea of a centaur is a complex mental picture
composed of the ideas of man and horse, that of a mermaid of a woman and a
fish.<ref name=EB1911/>
*** Walter Benjamin
"Ideas are to objects [of perception] as constellations are to stars,"[22]
writes Walter Benjamin in the introduction to his _The Origin of German Tragic
Drama_. "The set of concepts which assist in the representation of an idea
lend it actuality as such a configuration. For phenomena are not incorporated
into ideas. They are not contained in them. Ideas are, rather, their
objective virtual arrangement, their objective interpretation."
Benjamin advances, "That an idea is that moment in the substance and being of
a word in which this word has become, and performs, as a symbol." as George
Steiner summarizes.<ref name=":0" /> In this way _techne--_art and
technology—may be represented, ideally, as "discrete, fully autonomous
objects...[thus entering] into fusion without losing their identity."<ref
name=":0" />
** In anthropology and the social sciences
Diffusion studies explore the spread of ideas from culture to culture. Some
anthropological theories hold that all cultures imitate ideas from one or a
few original cultures, the Adam of the Bible, or several cultural circles that
overlap. Evolutionary diffusion theory holds that cultures are influenced by
one another but that similar ideas can be developed in isolation.
In the mid-20th century, social scientists began to study how and why ideas
spread from one person or culture to another. Everett Rogers pioneered
diffusion of innovations studies, using research to prove factors in adoption
and profiles of adopters of ideas. In 1976, in his book _The Selfish Gene_,
Richard Dawkins suggested applying biological evolutionary theories to the
spread of ideas. He coined the term _meme_ to describe an abstract unit of
selection, equivalent to the gene in evolutionary biology.
** Ideas and intellectual property
[Intellectual property]
*** Relationship between ideas and patents
**** On susceptibility to exclusive property
{{Blockquote|It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that
inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not
merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a
moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from
nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary
right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the
subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an
acre of land, for instance.
By a universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all
men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies
it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it.
Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress
of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation
of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and
stable property.
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive
property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an
individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the
moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and
the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is
that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without
lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without
darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the
moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems
to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made
them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in
any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical
being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then
cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an
encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may
or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society,
without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as
I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on
earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of
an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and
by a special and personal act but, generally speaking, other nations have
thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to
society.[23]|Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac McPherson, 13 August 1813}}
Patent law regulates various aspects related to the functional manifestation
of inventions based on new ideas or incremental improvements to existing ones.
Thus, patents have a direct relationship to ideas.
*** Relationship between ideas and copyrights
In some cases, authors can be granted limited legal monopolies on the manner
in which certain works are expressed. This is known colloquially as
copyright, although the term intellectual property is used mistakenly in place
of _copyright_. Copyright law regulating the aforementioned monopolies
generally does not cover the actual ideas. The law does not bestow the legal
status of property upon ideas per se. Instead, laws purport to regulate
events related to the usage, copying, production, sale and other forms of
exploitation of the fundamental expression of a work, that may or may not
carry ideas. Copyright law is fundamentally different from patent law in this
respect: patents do grant monopolies on ideas (more on this below).
A copyright is meant to regulate some aspects of the usage of expressions of a
work, _not_ an idea. Thus, copyrights have a negative relationship to ideas.
Work means a tangible medium of expression. It may be an original or
derivative work of art, be it literary, dramatic, musical recitation,
artistic, related to sound recording, etc. In (at least) countries adhering
to the Berne Convention, copyright automatically starts covering the work upon
the original creation and fixation thereof, without any extra steps. While
creation usually involves an idea, the idea in itself does not suffice for the
purposes of claiming copyright.[24][25][26][27][28]
*** Relationship of ideas to confidentiality agreements
Confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements are legal instruments that assist
corporations and individuals in keeping ideas from escaping to the general
public. Generally, these instruments are covered by contract law.[date=April
2023]
** See also
[Philosophy] [Wiktionary] [ideas]
- Idealism
- Brainstorming
- Creativity techniques
- Diffusion of innovations
- Form
- Ideology
- List of perception-related topics
- Notion (philosophy)
- Object of the mind
- Think tank
- Thought experiment
- History of ideas
- Intellectual history
- Concept
- Philosophical analysis
[Clear]
** Notes
[Reflist]
** References
- _The Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ , Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1973 [0-02-894950-1] [978-0-02-894950-5]
- Dictionary of the History of Ideas (see https://web.archive.org/web/20060907141147/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-45) Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1973–74, [72007943] [0-684-16425-6]
- Nous (see https://web.archive.org/web/20071211021125/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&query=nous&docs=div1&title=&sample=1-100&grouping=work)
¹ Volume IV 1a, 3a
² Volume IV 4a, 5a
³ Volume IV 32 - 37
Ideas (see https://web.archive.org/web/20070807105612/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&query=Idea&docs=div1&title=&sample=1-100&grouping=work)
Ideology (see https://web.archive.org/web/20070806072659/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&act=text&offset=9030627&query=Idea&tag=IDEOLOGY)
Authority (see https://web.archive.org/web/20070807143201/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&act=text&offset=1129686&query=Idea&tag=AUTHORITY)
Education (see https://web.archive.org/web/20070807145708/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&act=text&offset=5531029&query=Idea&tag=EDUCATION)
Liberalism (see https://web.archive.org/web/20110424180029/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&act=text&offset=10374338&query=Idea&tag=LIBERALISM)
Idea of God (see https://web.archive.org/web/20070503133057/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w)
Pragmatism (see https://web.archive.org/web/20070807110048/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&act=text&offset=14090262&query=Idea&tag=PRAGMATISM)
Chain of Being (see https://web.archive.org/web/20070806070421/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&act=text&offset=2479574&query=Idea&tag=CHAIN+OF+BEING)
- _The Story of Thought_ , DK Publishing, Bryan Magee , London, 1998, [0-7894-4455-0]
a.k.a. _The Story of Philosophy_ , Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 2001, [0-7894-7994-X]
(subtitled on cover: _The Essential Guide to the History of Western Philosophy_ )
<sup> a </sup> Plato, pages 11 - 17, 24 - 31, 42, 50, 59, 77, 142, 144, 150
<sup> b </sup> Descartes, pages 78, 84 - 89, 91, 95, 102, 136 - 137, 190, 191
<sup> c </sup> Locke, pages 59 - 61, 102 - 109, 122 - 124, 142, 185
<sup> d </sup> Hume, pages 61, 103, 112 - 117, 142 - 143, 155, 185
<sup> e </sup> Kant, pages 9, 38, 57, 87, 103, 119, 131 - 137, 149, 182
<sup> f </sup> Peirce, pages 61, _How to Make Our Ideas Clear_ 186 - 187 and 189
<sup> g </sup> Saint Augustine, pages 30, 144; _City of God_ 51, 52, 53 and _The Confessions_ 50, 51, 52
- additional in the Dictionary of the History of Ideas for Saint Augustine and Neo-Platonism (see https://web.archive.org/web/20070807110005/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv3-64)
<sup> h </sup> Stoics, pages 22, 40, 44; The governing philosophy of the Roman Empire on pages 46 - 47.
- additional in Dictionary of the History of Ideas for Stoics (see https://web.archive.org/web/20071210150050/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&act=text&offset=15375238&query=stoics&tag=RATIONALITY+AMONG+THE+GREEKS+AND+ROMANS) , also here see https://web.archive.org/web/20071213122327/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&act=text&offset=11461153&query=stoics&tag=CHANGING+CONCEPTS+OF+MATTER+FROM+ANTIQUITY+TO+NEWTON , and here see https://web.archive.org/web/20071213122327/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&act=text&offset=11461153&query=stoics&tag=CHANGING+CONCEPTS+OF+MATTER+FROM+ANTIQUITY+TO+NEWTON , and here see https://web.archive.org/web/20071210182051/http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/ot2www-dhi?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fdhi%2Fdhi.o2w&act=text&offset=17347564&query=stoics&tag=ETHICS+OF+STOICISM .
- _The Reader's Encyclopedia_ , 2nd Edition 1965, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, [65012510]
An Encyclopedia of World Literature
<sup> ¹a </sup> page 774 Plato ( [circa] 427–348 BC)
<sup> ²a </sup> page 779 Francesco Petrarca
<sup> ³a </sup> page 770 Charles Sanders Peirce
<sup> ¹b </sup> page 849 the Renaissance
- This article incorporates text from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge , a publication now in the public domain .
** Further reading
- Stephen Laurence and Eric Margolis, _The Building Blocks of Thought: A Rationalist Account of the Origins of Concepts (see https://academic.oup.com/book/57984?login=false) (_ Oxford University Press, 2024)
- Jerry Fodor , _Hume Variations_ (Oxford University Press, 2003)
- Stephen P. Stitch (ed.), _Innate Ideas_ (University of California Press, 1975)
- A. G. Balz, _Idea and Essence in the Philosophy of Hobbes and Spinoza_ (New York 1918)
- Gregory T. Doolan, _Aquinas on the divine ideas as exemplar causes_ (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2008)
- Patricia A. Easton (ed.), _Logic and the Workings of the Mind. The Logic of Ideas and Faculty Psychology in Early Modern Philosophy_ (Atascadero, Calif.: Ridgeview 1997)
- Pierre Garin, _La Théorie de l'idée suivant l'école thomiste_ (Paris 1932)
- Marc A. High, _Idea and Ontology. An Essay in Early Modern Metaphysics of Ideas_ ( Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008)
- Lawrence Lessig , _The Future of Ideas_ (New York 2001)
- Paul Natorp , _Platons Ideenlehre_ (Leipzig 1930)
- [author=Melchert, Norman ]
- W. D. Ross, _Plato's Theory of Ideas_ (Oxford 1951)
- Peter Watson, _Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud_ , Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London 2005)
- J. W. Yolton, _John Locke and the Way of Ideas_ (Oxford 1956)
[Metaphysics] [Philosophy of mind] [Idealism] [Authority control]
Category:Cognition Category:Creativity Category:Concepts in metaphysics
Category:Idealism Category:Innovation Category:Ontology Category:Platonism