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An idea (Greek: ἰδέα) is an image existing or formed in the mind. The human capacity to contemplate ideas is associated with the capacity for reason, self-reflection, and the ability to acquire and apply intellect. more...

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Ideas give rise to concepts, which are the basis for any kind of knowledge whether science or philosophy. However, in a popular sense, an idea can arise even when there is no serious reflection, for example, when we talk about the idea of a person or a place.

Philosophy

The view that ideas exist in a realm separate or distinct from real life is a venerable theme in philosophy. This view holds that we only discover ideas in the same way that we discover the real world.

In philosophy, the term idea is common to all languages and periods, but there is scarcely any term which has been used with so many different shades of meaning.

Plato

Plato utilized the concept of idea in the realm of metaphysics. He asserted that there is 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); opposed to this form of idealism are empirical thinkers of various times who find reality in particular physical objects (see hylozoism, empiricism, etc.).;

John Locke

In striking contrast to Plato’s use of idea is that of John Locke, who defines “idea” as “whatever is the object of understanding when a man thinks” (Essay on the Human Understanding (I.), vi. 8). Here the term is applied not to the mental process, but to anything whether physical or intellectual which is the object of it.;

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.”;

Kant

Immanuel Kant defines an \"idea\" as opposed to a \"concept\". \"Regulator ideas\" are ideals that one must tend towards to, but by definition may not be completely realized. Liberty, according to Kant, is an idea. The autonomy of the rational and universal subject is opposed to the determinism of the empirical subject.

Wilhelm Wundt

Wundt widens the term 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.;