An idea is a concept or mental impression. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images. Many philosophers consider 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. In a popular sense, an idea arises in a reflex, spontaneous manner, even without thinking or serious reflection, for example, when we talk about the idea of a person or a place.
Read more about Idea: Innate and Adventitious Ideas, In Anthropology and The Social Sciences
Other articles related to "idea, ideas":
... "I got the idea for Netflix after my company was acquired," said Hastings ... as you wanted." Hastings said that when he founded Netflix, he had no idea whether or not customers would use the service ... was originally a single rental service, but the subscription model was one of a few ideas we had—so there was no Aha! moment ...
... Associationism is the idea that mental processes operate by the association of one state with its successor states ... The idea is first recorded in Plato and Aristotle, especially with regard to the succession of memories ... School", see Association of Ideas ...
... are legal instruments that assist corporations and individuals in keeping ideas from escaping to the general public ...
... philosophy was a synthesis of Eleatic and Socratic ideas ... Mixing these two ideas, Euclid claimed that good is the knowledge of this being ... He identified the Eleatic idea of "The One" with the Socratic "Form of the Good," which he called "Reason," "God," "Mind," "Wisdom," etc ...
... than the calyx, there arises musically, as the very idea and delicate, the one absent from every bouquet.' In the everyday use of language, words are the vehicles of ideas ... Only in this way can the idea arise ... The absence of the thing is made good by the presence of the idea ...
Famous quotes containing the word idea:
“The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas—uncertainty, progress, change—into crimes.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)
“The image cannot be dispossessed of a primordial freshness, which idea can never claim. An idea is derivative and tamed. The image is in the natural or wild state, and it has to be discovered there, not put there, obeying its own law and none of ours. We think we can lay hold of image and take it captive, but the docile captive is not the real image but only the idea, which is the image with its character beaten out of it.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“The American Dream, the idea of the happy ending, is an avoidance of responsibility and commitment.”
—Jill Robinson (b. 1936)