Everything about Idea totally explained
An
idea is a
form (such as a
thought) formed by the
consciousness (including
mind) by the
process of
ideation. Human capability to contemplate ideas is associated with the ability of
reasoning,
self-reflection, and of the ability to acquire and apply
intellect,
intuition,
inspiration, etc.. Further, ideas give rise to actual
concepts, or mind generalisations, which are the basis for any kind of
knowledge whether
science or
philosophy.
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.
Philosophy
In
philosophy, there's scarcely any term which has been used with so many different shades of meaning. The view that ideas exist in a realm
separate or
distinct from
real life is referred to as
innate ideas. Another view holds that we only discover ideas in the same way that we discover the real world, from personal experiences. The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from
nurture (life experiences) is known as
tabula rasa ("blank slate"). Most of the confusions in the way of ideas arise at least in part from the use of the term "idea" to cover both the representation percept and the object of conceptual thought. This can be illustrated in terms of the doctrines of
innate ideas, "
concrete ideas verses
abstract ideas", as well as "simple ideas verses complex ideas".
Plato
Plato was one of the earliest philosophers to provide a detailed discussion of ideas. He considered the concept of
idea in the realm of
metaphysics and it's implications for
epistemology. He asserted that there's realm of Forms or Ideas, which exist independently of anyone who may have thought of these ideas. Material things are then imperfect and transient reflections or instantiations of the perfect and unchanging ideas. From this it follows that these Ideas are the principal
reality (see also
idealism). In contrast to the individual objects of sense experience, which undergo constant change and flux, Plato held that ideas are perfect, eternal, and immutable. Consequently, Plato considered that knowledge of material things isn't really knowledge; real knowledge can only be had of unchanging ideas.
René Descartes
Descartes often wrote of the meaning of
idea as an image or representation, often but not necessarily "in the mind", which was well known in the
vernacular. In spite of the fact that Descartes is usually credited with the invention of the non-Platonic use of the term, we find him at first following this vernacular use.
b In his
Meditations on First Philosophy he says, "Some of my thoughts are like images of things, and it's to these alone that the name 'idea' properly belongs." He sometimes maintained that ideas were
innate 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.
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) For him knowledge took the form of ideas and philosophical investigation is the deep consideration of these ideas. Many times however his thoughts of knowledge and ideas were like those of
Plotinus and
Neoplatonism. In Neoplatonism the Intelligence (
Nous) is the true first principle -- the determinate, referential 'foundation' (
arkhe) -- of all existents; for it isn't a self-sufficient entity like the One, but rather possesses the ability or capacity to contemplate both the One, as its prior, as well as its own thoughts, which Plotinus identifies with the Platonic Ideas or Forms (
eide)
(External Link). A non-philosophical definition of
Nous is
good sense (a.k.a. "common sense"). Descartes is quoted as saying, "Of all things,
good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he's so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have."
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John Locke
In striking contrast to Plato’s use of idea is that of
John Locke in his masterpiece
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in the Introduction where he defines
idea as "It being that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks, I've used it to express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it's which the mind can be employed about in thinking ; and I couldn't avoid frequently using it." He said he regarded the book necessary to examine our own abilities and see what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. In his philosophy 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
good sense - not pushing things to extremes and on taking fully into account the plain facts of the matter. He considered his common sense ideas "good-tempered, moderate, and down-to-earth."
c
David Hume
Hume differs from Locke by limiting "idea" to the more or less vague mental reconstructions of perceptions, the perceptual
process being described as an "impression." Hume shared with Locke the basic empiricist premise that it's only from life experiences (whether our own or other's) that out knowledge of the existence of anything outside of ourselves can be ultimately derived. We shall carry on doing what we're prompted to do by our emotional drives of all kinds. In choosing the means to those ends we'll follow our accustomed association of ideas.
d Hume is quoted as saying: "Reason is the slave of the passions."
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant defines an "idea" as opposed to a "
concept". "Regulator ideas" are ideals that one must tend towards, but by definition may not be completely realized.
Liberty, according to Kant, is an idea. The of the rational and
universal subject is opposed to the
determinism of the
empirical subject. Kant felt that it's precisely in knowing its limits that philosophy exists. The business of philosophy he thought wasn't to give rules, but to analyze the private judgements of good common sense.
e
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 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. 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 (for example 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.
Charles Sanders Peirce
C. S. Peirce published the first full statement of
pragmatism in his important works and "The Fixation of Belief" (1877) . 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's apprehended such as it'll be recognized wherever it's met, and no other will be mistaken for it. If it fails of this clearness, it's 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 by scientists for some 250 years, for example that, he pointed, knowledge was an impersonal fact. Peirce contended that we acquire knowledge as
participants, not as
spectators. He felt "the real" is which, sooner or later, information acquired through ideas and knowledge with the application of logical reasoning would finally result in. 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 (External Link), define "idea" as "the reproduction with a more or less adequate
image, of an object not actually present to the senses." 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.
It should be observed that 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 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's a stool", he's 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.
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 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,
Richard Dawkins suggested applying biological
evolutionary theories to spread of ideas. He coined the term '
meme' to describe an abstract unit of
selection, equivalent to the
gene in
evolutionary biology.
Semantics
James Boswell recorded Dr.
Samuel Johnson' s opinion about ideas. Johnson claimed that they're mental images or internal visual pictures. As such, they've no relation to words or the concepts which are designated by verbal names.
He was particularly indignant against the almost universal use of the word idea in the sense of notion or opinion, when it's clear that idea can only signify something of which an image can be formed in the mind. We may have an idea or image of a mountain, a tree, a building; but we can't surely have an idea or image of an argument or proposition. Yet we hear the sages of the law 'delivering their ideas upon the question under consideration;' and the first speakers in parliament 'entirely coinciding in the idea which has been ably stated by an honourable member;' — or 'reprobating an idea unconstitutional, and fraught with the most dangerous consequences to a great and free country.' Johnson called this 'modern cant.' |
Validity of ideas
In the objective worth of our
ideas there remains the problem of the
validity. As all
cognition is by
ideas, it's obvious that the question of the validity of
our ideas in this broad sense is that of the
truth of our
knowledge as a whole. Otherwise to dispute this is to take up the position of
scepticism. This has often been pointed out as a means intellectual suicide. Any chain of reasoning (common sense) by which it's attempted to demonstrate the falsity of our
ideas has to employ the very concept of
ideas itself. Then insofar as it demands assent to the conclusion, it implies belief in the validity of all the
ideas employed in the premises of the argument.
To assent the fundamental mathematical and logical
axioms, including that of the principle of
contradiction, implies admission of the truth of the
ideas expressed in these principles. With respect to the objective worth of ideas, as involved in
perception generally, the question raised is that of the existence of an independent material world comprising other human beings. The
idealism of
David Hume and
John Stuart Mill would lead logically to
solipsism (the denial of any others besides ourselves). The main foundation of all
idealism and scepticism is the assumption (explicit or implicit), that the mind can never know what is outside of itself. This is to say that an
idea as a
cognition can never go outside of itself. This can be further expressed as we can never reach to and mentally apprehend anything outside of anything of what is actually a present state of our own consciousness.
- First, this is based on a prior assumption for which no real proof is or can be given
- Second, it isn't only not self-evident, but directly contrary to what our mind affirms to be our direct intellectual experience.
What is possible for a human mind to apprehend can't be laid down beforehand. It must be ascertained by careful observations and by study of the process of cognition. This postulates that the mind can't apprehend or cognize any reality existing outside of itself and isn't only a self-evident proposition, it's directly contrary to what such observation and the testimony of mankind affirms to be our actual intellectual experience.
John Stuart Mill and most extreme idealists have to admit the validity of memory and expectation. This is to say that in every act of memory or expectation which refers to any experience outside the present instant, our cognition is transcending the present modifications of the mind and judging about reality beyond and distinct from the present states of consciousness. Considering the question as specially concerned with
universal concepts, only the theory of moderate realism adopted by
Aristotle and
Saint Thomas can claim to guarantee objective value to our ideas. According to the
nominalist and
conceptualist theories there's no true correlate in
rerum naturâ corresponding to the universal term.
Mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and the rest claim that their universal propositions are true and deal with
realities. It is involved in the very notion of science that the physical laws formulated by the mind do mirror the working of agents in the external universe. The general terms of these sciences and
the ideas which they signify have objective correlatives in the common natures and essences of the objects with which these sciences deal.
Otherwise these general statements are unreal and each science is nothing more than a consistently arranged system of barren propositions deduced from empty arbitrary definitions. These
postulates then have no more genuine objective value than any other coherently devised scheme of artificial symbols standing for imaginary beings. However the fruitfulness of science and the constant verifications of its predictions are incompatible with such a
hypothesis.
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Relationship of ideas to modern legal time- and scope-limited monopolies
Relationship between ideas and patents
On Susceptibility to Exclusive Property
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac McPherson, 13 August 1813
"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's 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 an 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's 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's divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver can't 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's a fact, as far as I'm 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's 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; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices."
To protect the cause of invention and innovation, the legal constructions of Copyrights and Patents was established.
Patent law regulates various aspects related to the functional manifestation of inventions based on new ideas or an 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 doesn't cover the actual ideas. The law doesn't 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 to
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 doesn't suffice for the purposes of claiming copyright.
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.
Further Information
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