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:
“He was not a villain—simply a self-indulgent spoiled young man who had realized to himself no idea of duty in life.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Demoniac possession is mythical; but the faculty of being possessed, more less completely, by an idea is probably the fundamental condition of what is called genius, whether it show itself in the saint, the artist, or the man of science.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“So much of what I am I got from you. I had no idea how much of it was secondhand.”
—Pete Townshend (b. 1945)