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==Etymology==
The word ''idea'' comes from [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] [[wikt:ἰδέα|ἰδέα]] ''idea'' "form, pattern,", from the root of ἰδεῖν ''idein'', "to see."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/idea |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130211204757/http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/idea |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 11, 2013 |title=Definition of ''idea'' in English |year=2014 |work=[[Oxford English Dictionary]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}</ref>
==History==
[[John Locke]]'s use of idea stands in striking contrast to Plato's.<ref>Vol 4: 487–503</ref> In his Introduction to [[An Essay Concerning Human Understanding]], Locke defines ''idea'' as "that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks, I have used it to express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking; And I could not avoid frequently using it."<ref>{{cite wikisource |title=An Essay Concerning Human Understanding |wslink=An Essay Concerning Human Understanding/Introduction |section=Introduction |first=John |last=Locke |at=§ What Idea stands for. |year=1689}}</ref> He said he regarded the contribution offered in his essay as necessary to examine our own abilities and discern what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. In this style of ideal conception 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 the ''good sense'' — not pushing things to extremes and while taking fully into account the plain facts of the matter. He prioritized common-sense ideas that struck him as "good-tempered, moderate, and down-to-earth."
As John Locke studied humans in his work "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" he continually referenced Descartes for ideas as he asked this fundamental question: "When we are concerned with something about which we have no certain knowledge, what rules or standards should guide how confident we allow ourselves to be that our opinions are right?" <ref name="ReferenceA">Locke, John. "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding." (n.d.): An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book, I: Innate Notions.</ref> Put in another way, he inquired into how humans might verify their ideas, and considered the distinctions between different types of ideas. Locke found that an idea "can simply mean some sort of brute experience."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fitzpatrick |first1=John R. |title=Starting with Mill |date=2010 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4411-0044-3 }}{{page needed|date=April 2021}}</ref> He shows that there are "No innate principles in the mind."<ref>Locke, John. "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (n.d.): An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book, I: Innate Notions</ref> Thus, he concludes that "our ideas are all experienced in nature."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sheridan |first1=Patricia |title=Locke: A Guide for the Perplexed |date=2010 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-0-8264-8983-8 }}{{page needed|date=April 2021}}</ref> An experience can either be a sensation or a reflection: "consider whether there are any innate ideas in the mind before any are brought in by the impression from sensation or reflection."<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Therefore, an idea was an experience in which the human mind apprehended something.
In a Lockean view, there are really two types of ideas: complex and simple. Simple ideas are the building blocks for more complex ideas, and "While the mind is wholly passive in the reception of simple ideas, it is very active in the building of complex ideas…"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sheridan |first1=Patricia |title=Locke: A Guide for the Perplexed |date=2010 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-0-8264-8983-8 }}{{page needed|date=April 2021}}</ref> Complex ideas, therefore, can either be ''modes'', ''substances'', or ''relations''.
===David Hume===
[[David Hume|Hume]] differs from Locke by limiting ''idea'' to theonly one of two possible types of perception. The other one is called "impression", and is more lively: these are perceptions we have "when we hear, or lesssee, vagueor mentalfeel, reconstructionsor oflove, perceptionsor hate, or desire, or will." ''Ideas'' are more complex and are built upon these more basic and more grounded perceptions.<ref>{{Citation |last=Hume |first=David |title=Of the perceptualOrigin processof beingIdeas described|work=An asEnquiry anconcerning "impressionHuman Understanding |date=2008 |url=https://oxfordworldsclassics."com/display/10.1093/owc/9780199549900.001.0001/isbn-9780199549900-book-part-4 |access-date=2024-01-28 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en-US |doi=10.1093/owc/9780199549900.003.0004 |isbn=978-0-19-192173-5}}</ref><ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911 |wstitle=Idea |volume=14 |pages=280–281 |inline=1}}</ref><ref>Vol 4: 74–90</ref> Hume shared with Locke the basic empiricist premise that it is only from life experiences (whether their own or others') that humans' knowledge of the existence of anything outside of themselves can be ultimately derived, that they shall carry on doing what they are prompted to do by their emotional drives of varying kinds. In choosing the means to those ends, they shall follow their accustomed associations of ideas.<sup>d</sup> Hume has contended and defended the notion that "reason alone is merely the 'slave of the passions'."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/#inmo |title=Hume's Moral Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) |publisher=Plato.stanford.edu |access-date=2013-06-15 |archive-date=2021-01-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126100244/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/#inmo |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Hume, David: A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects. (1739–40)</ref>
===Immanuel Kant===
[[Category:Ontology]]
[[Category:Platonism]]
[[Category:Idea]]
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