IDEA

IDEA. - The term, of Greek origin (ἰδία and εἶδος, from ἰδεῖν, to see), indicates, in its primitive reference, figure, visible appearance, form: ἰδεῖν τῆς γῆς (Plato, Phaed., 108 d; the same meaning in Aristotle, Hist. animal., VI, 35, 580 a 28). The Latin species corresponds to it (from spectare, to look at; Cicero prefixed to it the term forma: Top., 7,30; but already in his time the Greek word had entered Latin without undergoing alteration). It is perhaps from the value possessed by the external figure as a sign and expression of the internal structure of beings that the term could be transferred to indicate the essential “form” or “type” of things. This is the fundamental metaphysical-logical meaning that the term (already used by Democritus in the sense of “determination” and “schema”: ἰδεῖν or σχήματα as atomic structures of matter) assumed in Plato and subsequently, with a variety of applications, in the philosophical currents connected with Platonism. In the history of philosophical thought the term has subsequently become burdened, as few others have, with further meanings and systematic references.

In Plato, i. is the intelligible unity of the many (Resp., VI, 507 b); the i. subsist in themselves, immutable, ungenerated, incorruptible (Tim., 51 d ff.); incorporeal, they are the true essence (τὴν ἀληθινὴν οὐσίαν, Soph., 246 b); the reasons and truth of beings (τῶν ὄντων τὴν ἀλήθειαν, Phaed., 99 e); the exemplars of nature (παραδείγματα ἐν τῇ φύσει), to which all other things are similar and in virtue of which they participate (Parm., 132 d). I. therefore has value in the Platonic system as the principle and rational value of things, their essential determination, and is at the same time the object of the soul’s intuition or vision (which perhaps provides another justification for Plato’s use of the term). The i. not only have ontological value but, in the interpretation given them by Aristotle, subsist in themselves, outside material and visible reality (cf. Met., I, 6, 9; XI, 1, 4; VI, 14; XII, 9; XIII, 4). Aristotle, while denying this separate subsistence (ibid., VI, 13), preserves the metaphysical value of i. The εἶδος (μορφῆ, οὐσία δεύτερα) is in fact the universal, the one and the same in many (ἐν καὶ αὐτὸ ἐπὶ πλεόνων: Analyt. post., I, 11, 77 a 9), that is, the essential unity common to all individuals, which is real only in them and derives from them: ἐκ τῶν καθ' ἔκαστα γὰρ τὸ καθόλου (Eth. nicom., VI, 12, 1143 b 4): i. therefore is not, as in Plato, an object of intuition but is obtained through an abstractive process.

In the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition, ancient and medieval thought is maintained for the most part. The Stoics, while reducing i. as general concepts to a purely subjective-empirical value (they are simply the persistence of sensory representations: an anticipation of Hume), nevertheless admit a rational principle (λόγος σπηρεματικός) immanent in nature. Likewise Philo, who places within things the “rational powers” (δυνάμεις λόγοι) and sees in i. and supreme force (the Λόγος) the exemplary form of the world (cf. De mundi opificio, 17 ff., 24-25). For Cicero, i., as already in Plato, are “formae rerum,” exemplary principles belonging to the purely intelligible order (“cogitatione tantum et mente complectimur” [ideas]), ungenerated, immutable, eternal (De orat., chap. 3). Likewise Seneca: “Idea est eorum quae natura fium exemplar aeternum” (Epist., 58).

In Plotinus, i. are the eternal content of the spiritual act (νοῦς) with which they are identified. They constitute the intelligible world (κόσμος νοητός) of the spirit; and since activity and thought reside as “its own force” in being, i. are “the form of being and its operative force” (Enm., V, I, 9, chap. 8-9). For St. Augustine (and analogous is the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius: cf. De div. nom., chap. 5), i. are the “rationes aeternae” existing in God, the form and exemplary cause of all created things:

“ideae principales quaedam formae vel rationes rerum stabiles atque incommutabiles... quae in divina intelligentia continentur” (Quaest. 83, q. 46: Pl. 40, 30): eternal and absolute values, i. transcend, as immutable objectivity, individual human consciousnesses (De lib. arb., III, 7). In God they function as formal determinations of his infinite truth: participation in i. therefore entails, in human knowledge, the realization of a relation with absolute truth and hence with God (cf. De Civ. Dei, XI, 10).

In the early Middle Ages, with regard to the problem of universals (v.), the Platonic conception of the real subsistence of i. was taken up again. For William of Champeaux, “species” possesses true substantial consistency and is found, as an ontological unity (not merely a formal one), in the multiplicity of individuals (cf. Abelard, Hist. calamitatum, chap. 2). The further discussion of the problem of universals led to the more mature formulation of i. as a form pre-existing in God (universal “ante rem”), as a reality individuated in individual beings (universal “in re”), and as the universalization, carried out by the mind, of the specific unity of individuals (universal “post rem”); cf. St. Thomas, De ente et essentia, chap. 4; Quodlib., q. VIII, a. 1). But in the problem of universals, one spoke more of “species,” “conceptio,” and “genus” than of i. In the great medieval theologians, the term i. retains rather the Neoplatonic-Augustinian metaphysical meaning of cause and exemplary form in the divine mind. For St. Albert the Great, i. are “in mente divina secundum quod ars est omnium creatorum” (Sum. Theol., 1°, q. 55, a. 2). According to St. Bonaventure, “ideae rerum ante mundi constitutionem in mente Creatoris erant” (Comp. Theol., I, 25). This doctrine is developed by St. Thomas: “oporet dicere quod in divina sapientia sint rationes omnium rerum quas... diximus ideas; id est formas exemplares in mente divina exsistentes” (Sum. Theol., 1°, q. 44, a. 3, c.; cf. q. 15, a. 1, c.). I. in general is form, that is, the objective expression of a thing: it functions as an exemplary principle insofar as it directs action; as a cognitive principle insofar as it is the term by which the thing is given in consciousness, “secundum quod formae cognoscibilium dicuntur esse in cognoscente” (ibid.). In both senses i. are in God: as the principle of creative activity, i. in the divine mind is “exemplar”; as the principle in which and through which divine knowledge of things is realized, i. is “ratio” (ibid., n. 3).

The second of the two meanings indicated in St. Thomas (i. as cognitive representation) is already close, although with a different epistemological meaning, to the modern sense that arrives (in antithesis to the Platonic meaning, according to which i. was an objective reality in itself) at the identification of i. with “mental representation,” distinguished from reality in itself. In Descartes, i. is in fact, in the technical sense, “the form by which every thought or content of knowledge is immediately given to consciousness”: “ideae nomine intelligo cuiuslibet cogitationis formam per cuius immediatam perceptionem eiusdem cogitationis conscius sum” (Replies to the Second Objections, definitions, 2). I. is thus the immediate mental form and term by which every content (intelligible-sensible) is given. Such content, insofar as it is in i., is called by Descartes the objective reality of i. (ibid., 3). Thus i., in itself, by no means places thought in contact with reality in itself, but rather confines it within the intentional sphere of representation (cf. Meditations, III). This concept of i., which underlies the epistemological immanentism of modern philosophy and from idealism (v.) is partly derived, is found again in Malebranche (i. is the immediate object of the spirit; that which is given in the representative sphere of consciousness); in Spinoza (i. is the conception of the mind insofar as it is a thinking substance: “per ideam intelligo mentis conceptum quem mens format propterea quod est res cogitans” (Ethics, II, def. 3). I.’s constitute the objective being of things, existing as a “nexus of causes” in the infinite divine i.: ibid., prop. VIII, XX); and in Leibniz (i. is a form pre-existing in God and in our intellect, nor does it in itself imply the real existence of what it represents: New Essays, III, chap. 4, § 2). The value of i. as a pure mental image is also a fundamental conception of empiricism. In Locke

i. is any object of knowledge and thought. I. therefore embraces all the contents of consciousness, both representational (sensations, images, concepts) and affective (feelings). Only in i. does the immediate object of thought consist. This principle becomes rigorous immaterialism in Berkeley; i. are all the objects of our knowledge (Principles, § 25); and since i. exist only in the spirit (ibid., § 22), none of our sensible representations can be objectified in a material reality existing in itself. Things coincide with i.; empirical reality is nothing other than the order and constant succession of i. impressed upon our spirit by God (ibid., §§ 33-39). Hume, preserving and indeed accentuating the purely immanent meaning of states of consciousness, understands by i. the images or representations derived from the original states of consciousness, that is, from impressions (Treatise, I, sec. 1, § 1). The difference between i. and impressions lies in their different degree of vividness and force: i. are nothing but the faint reflection (“faint images”) of impressions. Rationalism and empiricism therefore operate, in the same direction of immanence, a reduction of the contents of consciousness: the former by absorbing the concreteness of experience into i. as rational value, the latter by dissolving values and intellectual-rational concepts into i. as sensible representation, or associative synthesis of sensible representations.

In Kant, i. takes on a new technical meaning. It is an a priori representation, or transcendental concept of reason, which cannot be referred to the phenomena of experience as their form or category, but has value only as the ideal term of the totality of all experience: “By i. I understand a necessary concept of reason to which no adequate object can be found in the senses” (Critique of Pure Reason; Transcendental Dialectic, sec. 2; Italian translation by G. Gentile and G. Lombardo Radice, I, Bari 1940, p. 300). I., and first of all the three fundamental ones (world, self, God), have value only as pure ideal limits or points of convergence of experience in the absolute.

In post-Kantian idealist immanentism, i. assumes a metaphysical value even more universal than that which it had in Platonism. With every pluralism and dualism suppressed, i. becomes the objective force of the spirit that unfolds, as reason, in the world, and is therefore understood as the true substance and the transcendental unity in which all moments of the real are resolved. This absolute valorization of i., already present in Schelling (“i. is the synthesis of the absolute identity of the universal and the particular”; “nature is a reflection of i.”), is developed in the Hegelian system. For Hegel, i. is “the adequate concept, the objective true, that is, the true as such. When something has truth, it has it through its i.; that is, something has truth only insofar as it is i.” (The Science of Logic, Italian translation by A. Moni, III, Bari 1927, sec. III, p. 242). “Being has attained the meaning of truth insofar as i. is the unity of concept and reality; hence it is now only that which is i.” (ibid., p. 246). It should be noted that for Hegel “the identity of i. with itself is one and the same with the process” (ibid., p. 248), that is, i. is dialectic in its innermost being. Consequently, in every moment of the real, by virtue of its immanence in i., the profound meaning of identity prevails. Schopenhauer should be brought close to idealism; for him, i. indicates the immutable degrees of the objectification of the will, that is, of its phenomenal unfolding in the world and in multiplicity: “These degrees stand to individual objects as their eternal forms and models” (The World as Will and Representation, I, Italian translation by P. Savj-Lopez and G. De Lorenzo, Bari 1928, bk. II, § 25, pp. 162-63).

After idealism, leaving aside substantially traditional positions (for example, Rosmini, for whom i. “is properly the intelligibility of essences, or, which is the same thing, their objectivity,” and ultimately their value of being: Theosophy, V, national edition, Rome 1939, pp. 127, 136), mention should be made of the conception inspired by Kant, which understands i. as pure theoretical values, intrinsically devoid of ontological content: idealities into which the subject pours itself and which therefore present themselves on the horizon of the spirit as the term and goal of realization in the process of thought and action (e.g., H. Rickert: cf. System of Philosophy, I, Tübingen 1921, p. 158 ff.).

But the denial of the metaphysical value of i. has found its most systematic expression in recent forms of irrationalism (Scheler, Sprenger, Stirner, Nietzsche, Marxism, existentialism), which in contemporary philosophy represent the sharpest departure from the tradition of Greek-Christian-modern idealism. Already in Feuerbach, i. is “abstraction,” “unreality,” a “theological phantom” in contrast with the sole solid reality of nature. This concept has, as is well known, received extensive theorization in Marxism, for which the only true dialectic is the naturalistic-economic process of the world: consciousness, and particularly i. (understood as doctrines, theories, values, and ideologies), is a simple reflection of this process and therefore mutable, functioning within the same cosmic becoming. In present-day forms of existentialism, in opposition to i. as a universal intelligible value, absolute preeminence is assumed by the alogical existential categories as revelatory and constitutive moments of spiritual reality: singularity, possibility, decision, freedom, situation, temporality, risk, death, etc.

In neo-Scholastic philosophy, the use of i. has sometimes been restored to mean an intellectual notion or representation, distinguished, by its characteristics of universality and necessity, from concrete-particular sensitive representation. But there is now an appropriate tendency to prefer to it, in this sense, concept (v.), less burdened with secondary meanings.

Referring to the entry IDEALISMO for the fundamental theoretical problems concerning the idea in its metaphysical reference, one may note the objective foundation inherent in the various historical meanings of the term, upon which its extensive use in current language also depends.

The ontological meaning (Platone, Aristotele, Plotino, s. Agostino, s. Tommaso and, in a general sense, idealism) is justified by the reflection that no determination or essentiality in being is possible outside thought, and therefore every meaning and sense of reality must be referred to a rational principle. In this sense, and with reference to the absolute plane of reality, the principle formulated by Hegel applies: “everything real is rational.” The expression “ideas rule and move the world,” beyond its most immediate meaning (doctrines, theories, systems, and opinions determine action: cf. the “ideas-forces” of A. Fouillée), also has the profound meaning (essential in a theistic-transcendent conception) that reality, in its becoming, is the actualization of a rational value which at once constitutes the ontological nature of beings and posits itself as the teleological end of their activity.

The idea in the sense of a “model” or directive “exemplar” of action (to this refers the current expression “a man of ideals”) is connected with the predetermination of the end proper to spiritual volitional activity: “Haec ergo videtur esse ratio ideae, quod idea sit forma quam aliquid imitatur ex intentione agentis, qui determinat sibi finem” (s. Tommaso, De verit., q. 3, a. 1; cf. the entire question).

The meaning of idea as a mental representation, a content of thought distinguished from reality (to this refer such current expressions as “association of ideas”; “to have no idea of a fact, a place, a person”; “it is only an idea”), finds an explanation and justification in the fact that the idea, as the subjective form of knowing (the “species” or “mental word” of scholastic terminology), has no existence except in the knowing subject; it can and must therefore, in this sense, be opposed to reality in itself which, whenever it entails epistemological transcendence, cannot in its real being become the immediate term of knowledge. There is also a justification in the fact that the spirit has the power to produce representations without correspondence in ontic reality, for example, in dreams and the imagination. But this does not imply the general assumption that the idea cannot transcend itself as subjectivity, nor that, as regards its objective content, it cannot be an immediate reference to the real. The purely subjective value of the idea is a systematic postulate of epistemological immanentism, in no way validated by experience. Mental representation is not, in itself, to be understood as the object and term of the cognitive act, but rather as the intentional mediation through which consciousness relates to the real on the various planes of its objectivity. The idea is precisely the effective positing in consciousness of this relation. At the basis of the Cartesian-Lockean assumption lies the radical error of having suppressed or ignored the profound distinctions that experience imposes among the different forms and moments of knowing, together with the corresponding gradation in the ontic-existential consistency of the contents of consciousness. The denial of the objective reference of the idea, in order to consider it solely in its subjectivity, was logically bound to lead to the absolutization of the ego as subject and finally as pure act. The actualism of G. GENTILI (v.) precisely absorbed into the spirit, insofar as it is act, every remnant of objectivity that even post-Kantian idealism still acknowledged in the idea.

Further meanings of the term in current usage (idea as intention, purpose, opinion, etc.) tend to dissolve its systematic meaning. On the other hand, the substantivization, frequent in Italian, of the term “ideal,” and the meaning of idea as the essential part or nucleus of a system or doctrine—“the religious ideal,” “the Christian ideal”—are connected with Platone.

Ugo Viglino

IDEA. - Name of two periodicals founded and directed by Monsignor Pietro Barbieri.

The first is a "monthly journal of political and social culture," first published in January 1945. In this same issue, the director outlined the aims of the new magazine as follows: "clarification of spiritual, social, and economic problems; spiritual union of all Italians and intelligent cultural collaboration with other peoples, remaining above the fray of political parties and focusing more on perennial ideas than on contingent reality." Among its contributors are the names of Luigi Einaudi, Luigi Sturzo, Guido de Ruggiero, Guido Gonella, as well as numerous other Italian and foreign scholars.

The history of Idea is tied to the religious, moral, and political life of our time and constitutes a valuable source of information on Italian life during this troubled postwar period.

The second is a "weekly journal of culture," first appearing in May 1949. It covers a specifically cultural field and is open to all who are animated by a sincere love of culture. It serves as an arena for free discussion, guided by objectivity and scrupulousness, a newspaper of ideas aimed at moral and intellectual reconstruction, with contributions from the most illustrious figures in literature, art, science, and education. Ulisse Pucci