Idea
A concept or object of thought; for Plato, an eternal Form; for later philosophers, a content of the mind.
Works to read
- A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge by George Berkeley, 1710 · Great Books
- Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein, 1916 · Great Books
- A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume, 1739-1740
- Novum Organon Renovatum by William Whewell, 1858
- The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant, 1926
- Parmenides by Plato, c. 370 BC · Great Books
- Six Metaphysical Meditations, with Hobbes's Objections and the Replies by Rene Descartes, 1641 (English 1680) · Great Books
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke, 1689 · Great Books
- The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes, 1936 · Great Books
- An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by John of Damascus, c. 743
- The Metaphysical Poets by Various (ed. Helen Gardner), c. 1600–1680 (anthology 1957)
- Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1817
Passages
From the texts
For if those innate ideas are not clear and distinct, so as to be universally known and naturally agreed on, they cannot be subjects of universal and undoubted truths, but will be the unavoidable occasion of perpetual uncertainty.
— John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
That an idea which is inactive, and the existence whereof consists in being perceived, should be the image or likeness of an agent subsisting by itself, seems to need no other refutation than barely attending to what is meant by those words.
— George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
Verified quotations
No verified quotation in the library contains this idea's key words yet.
Passages are verified quotations from the library that use one of these words: idea, ideas, concept. Sentences under “From the texts” are copied word for word from the full texts in this library. Read each in its context on the work's page.