1. Concept.
2. Pensée. L'idée de la perfection.
3. Opinion. Ce ne sont pas mes idées.
4. Imagination. Ils se font des idées.
5. Aperçu. Je n'en ai aucune idée.
Idea; in philosophy, the term “concept” has superseded the more ambiguous “idea”. To have a concept of dog is to be able to distinguish dogs from other things, or to be able to think or reason about dogs in some way.
Conceptual realists hold that concepts are objectively existing universals, like real essences. Conceptualists hold that universals are mind-dependent concepts (this is the outlook of nominalism).
(Irregular plural: guesses).
1. A message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence; SYN. conjecture, supposition, surmise, speculation, hypothesis.
2. An estimate based on little or no information; SYN. guesswork, guessing, shot, dead reckoning.
ETYM Latin idea, Greek, from idein to see; akin to Eng. wit: cf. French idée. Related to Wit.
1. A personal view.
2. The content of cognition; the main thing one is thinking about; SYN. thought.
In philosophy, a term that has had a variety of technical usages; modern philosophers prefer more specific terms like “sense datum”, “image”, and “concept”. An innate idea is a concept not derived from experience.
Plato’s Ideas (also called Forms) were immaterial objects outside the mind, universals or essences existing objectively in nature. In later Greek and in medieval philosophy, ideas tended to be in the mind of God. Since the 17th century, “idea” has nearly always been used for something in or having reference to the mind. For Immanuel Kant, an idea was a representation of something that cannot be experienced. For G W F Hegel, the term meant something like the overall pattern or purpose in the universe.
(Homonym: incite).
1. A feeling of understanding; SYN. perceptiveness, perceptivity.
2. Grasping the inner nature of things intuitively; SYN. sixth sense.
3. The clear (and often sudden) understanding of a complex situation; SYN. brainstorm, brainwave.