“Ideas”

What is Idea?
- It is the mental product of the mental act/operation called abstraction. If ideas are mental
representation of thing it differs itself from phantasm since it resides in the imagination. In
other words, idea is essential to a thing that is being referred to while phantasm are the
accidental features of a thing being referred to.
- Idea is derived from the Greek word, “eidos” which means image.
- Ideas are edifice of knowledge. Ideas are considered as the building block of knowledge.

How ideas are being formed?

- All knowledge starts with the senses.
- According to Archimedes, there are seven processes or steps by which before an agent arrives
at an idea. These are the following: Sensation, Attention, Abstraction, Reflection, Comparison,
Analysis and Synthesis.
- Because of simple apprehension, the mind acts by grasping the nature/essence of a thing.
Hence, idea is the essence or whatness of a thing in itself.
- Memory, stores up the ideas in the mind while Imagination constructs image/s of objects in
the mind in the absence of the objects themselves. The result of imagination is phantasm
which is a sensible representation of the material features of a thing. It is a sort of practical
image, bearing or shape or figure.

Two Elements of Ideas

- Comprehension (General Idea)
- Extension (Specific Idea)
- As comprehension increases, extension decreases, and vice versa.

Classification of Ideas
- Origin (Intuitive and Derivative ideas)
- Relation (Identical Ideas, Different Ideas, Associable Ideas, Opposed Ideas (contrary,
contradictory)
- Comprehension (Simple Ideas, Compound Ideas, Concrete, Abstract Idea)
- Extension (Singular ideas, Universal ideas, Particular ideas, Collective ideas)