Ideas and

Phantasm
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Ideas
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Idea is the intellectual
representation or image of a thing.

It is the same as the concept in the mind although

concepts are viewed sometimes as purified ideas. The term,
idea, comes from the original Greek word idea which means
image.

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 for example:

Our idea of a dog is our mental image

or apprehension of an animal called
dog. This idea of a dog will apply to
any and all dogs, irrespective of their
individual differences among
themselves, provided they possess the
same essential qualities which
constitute the ‘dogness’ of a dog.
Hence, a precept is distinct from an
idea.

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 “
The term idea means the essence of a
certain thing, insofar as it is present to the
intellect; thus, essence as such is not singular
but universal.

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Phantasm
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 Phantasm is the sensible Image of
things and it is found in the
imagination. Phantasm is a sensible
image of the material features of a
thing, usually a kind of pictorial image
with shape.

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 “
Phantasm are images of particular
things. Ideas on the contrary are universals,
abstracted from particularized conditions.
Accordingly phantasms are universals in
potency.

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 Idea and Phantasm
Idea                                                   Phantasm

a) found in the mind;                   a.) found in the imagination;

b) universal;                                 b.) individual;

c) constant;                                   c.) changeable;

d) possible of complex and d.)not possible of…

Immaterial things

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Abstraction
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 It is metaphorically
The mental process applied to the act of the
for formation of the mind, by which the
idea is called mind as it were, draws
“abstraction”. out or strips from
Abstraction, individual phantasms
according to its Latin their essential universal
origin, means picking elements or features.
up from, or drawing
out from.

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 Two kinds of abstractions:

Formal Abstraction. draws conceptually a formal feature from its

subject or subjects, e.g. quantity from sensible matter; temperature,
color from objects. In this manner, we obtain abstract concepts like
justice, virtue, liberty, rationality, etc.

Total Abstraction. draws conceptually a universal nature (a logical

“whole”, predicable) from singular individuals e.g. rational-animal
from individual human beings; or, a wider universal nature from
less wide ones e.g. organism, from plants and animals.

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 Degrees of Abstraction

Physical Metaphysical

Mathematical

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 Degrees of Abstraction
Physical
The mind thus considers
bodies in their mobile and
sensible reality, bodies
garbed in their empirically
ascertainable qualities and
properties. Such an object
can neither exist without
matter and the qualities
bound up with it, nor can
it be conceived without
matter.
Mathematical
This is an object of thought
which cannot exist without
sensible matter, but which
can be conceived without
it. For, nothing sensible or
experimental enters into
the definition of the ellipse
or of the square root.
Metaphysics
In this case it considers in
things only the very being
with which they are
saturated, being as such
and its laws. These objects
of thought which not only
can be conceived without
matter, but which can
even exist without it,
whether they never exist in
matter.
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 In the first degree of this process, the mind knows an object which it disengages from
the singular and contingent moment of sense perception, but whose very intelligibility
implies a reference to the sensible.
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This first and lowest degree of scientific abstraction is precisely the degree of physics
and of the philosophy of nature. It defines the field of sensible reality. Above it comes the
degree of mathematical abstraction, in which the mind knows an object whose
intelligibility no longer implies an intrinsic reference to the sensible, but to the imaginable.
This is the domain of the mathematical realm.

Finally, in the highest degree of intelletual vision, the metaphysical degree, the
intelligibility of the object is free from any intrinsic reference to the senses or to
imagination. This is the field of the trans-sensible reality.

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Properties of Ideas
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2 Properties:
Comprehension. The sum-total of the thought
element or conceptual feauture contained in an
idea.
Extension. The sum-total of individuals and
categories of beings to which the idea may be
applied.

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Comprehension and Extension

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 Thanks!

Any questions?

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