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Single Idea 12496

[filed under theme 18. Thought / C. Content / 2. Ideas ]

Full Idea

All our complex ideas are ultimately resolvable into simple ideas, of which they are compounded and originally made up.

Gist of Idea

Complex ideas are all resolvable into simple ideas

Source

John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.22.09)

Book Ref

Locke,John: 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding', ed/tr. Nidditch,P.H. [OUP 1979], p.292

A Reaction

This can certainly be challenged. I guess we form the concept of a 'bird' before we form the concept of a 'feather'. How ideas are arrived at is quite different from ways in which they can be analysed and broken down.

The 18 ideas with the same theme [mental events which internally represent reality]:

5685 True ideas are images, such as of a man, a chimera, or God [Descartes]
21807 Ideas are powerful entities, which can produce further ideas [Spinoza, by Schmid]
4830 An 'idea' is a mental conception which is actively formed by the mind in thinking [Spinoza]
4842 Ideas are not images formed in the brain, but are the conceptions of thought [Spinoza]
20311 An idea involves affirmation or negation [Spinoza]
6486 Ideas are the objects of understanding when we think [Locke]
15967 The word 'idea' covers thinking best, for imaginings, concepts, and basic experiences [Locke]
12496 Complex ideas are all resolvable into simple ideas [Locke]
12945 Thoughts correspond to sensations, but ideas are independent of thoughts [Leibniz]
12938 An idea is an independent inner object, which expresses the qualities of things [Leibniz]
19357 The idea of green seems simple, but it must be compounded of the ideas of blue and yellow [Leibniz]
12950 We must distinguish images from exact defined ideas [Leibniz]
19427 True ideas represent what is possible; false ideas represent contradictions [Leibniz]
19423 By an 'idea' I mean not an actual thought, but the resources we can draw on to think [Leibniz]
5374 Berkeley probably used 'idea' to mean both the act of apprehension and the thing apprehended [Russell on Berkeley]
23630 Only philosophers treat ideas as objects [Reid]
12615 Mental representations are the old 'Ideas', but without images [Fodor]
5636 Cartesian 'ideas' confuse concepts and propositions [Scruton]