REPRESENTATION. - It is the term of an act of cognition when this is not an immediate apprehension and presentation of the reality known (it corresponds to the scholastic term species expressa).
R. is a generic term applicable to the image, concept (v.), idea (v.). The function, importance, and value attributed to r. differ knowledge (v.). According to a theory that dominates a large part of modern philosophy, knowledge always and solely terminates in r.; from these one should then, according to some (e.g., Descartes, Locke, Kant, positivism; V. a queste
voci), infer the existence of realities in themselves; whereas for others, e.g., SCHOPENHAUER, ARTHUR (v.), «the world is my r.» (Die Welt als Wille und Forstellung, I, § 3). According to other philosophies (Galluppi, Husserl, certain iconoclasts), on the other hand, knowledge is originally the apprehension or presence of a reality, and r. is only the means by which in certain cases (even if in most cases) we come to know realities not immediately present.