Idea

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

Famous quotes containing the word idea:

    Enthusiastic partisans of the idea of progress are in danger of failing to recognize ... the immense riches accumulated by the human race.... By underrating the achievements of the past, they devalue all those which still remain to be accomplished.
    Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–1990)

    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)

    I am a communist because I believe that the Communist idea is a state form of Christianity.
    Alexander Zhuravlyov (b. 1924)