Abstract:

A fundamental question in the study of the history of ideas is: What is an “idea”? One way to answer this question is to undertake a historical semantic examination of “idea” (ἰδέα, idea, idée, Idee, etc.) as a core term in Western philosophy. Generally speaking, the semantic evolution of “idea” exhibits a descent from the universal to the particular, and from transcendent reality to human psychology, with episodes of expansion, contraction, transformation, splitting and return interwoven along the way. Four main threads can be distinguished in this process: ideas as psychological representation, ideas as components of a worldview, ideas as shared action-guiding knowledge, and ideas as social materiality. Historical semantics can clarify the historical question of “what the concept of ‘idea’ once meant”, while the normative question of “what the concept of ‘idea’ should mean” awaits the development of a “philosophy of the history of ideas”.

Key words: idea, semantic space, metaphor, historical semantics