Idea

A dynamic form of reflection of objective things in the human brain, philosophical term corresponding to matter, to objective existence. Marx held that ideas are nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought. It also refers to views, thoughts, i.e., a result of thinking activity. As an active and dynamic reflection of the things, phenomena, processes and laws of the objective world, ideas can play a part in knowing and reshaping the objective world.

The word idea stems from the Greek word idea, which originally means a visible image. In the history of philosophy, there are many interpretations of the word “idea”. Plato held that ideas are eternally immutable real beings, perfect samples or patterns of sensuous things, while individual things are imperfect copies or imitations of ideas. Augustine, a Neoplatonist, held that ideas are perfect models of the phenomenal world and exist in the spirit of the universe or in the spirit of God. Many philosophers of the 16th-18th century used the term in the sense of a certain pattern in the human mind, conception of the mind, or concept. R. Descartes often used ideas to express intellectual objects; he divided ideas into three categories: innate, adventitious and fictional, and held that innate ideas as “rational knowledge” were correct, while others were suspect. J. Locke opposed the doctrine of innate ideas and held that the mind is originally a blank slate and that ideas of the mind come from sensation and reflection. G.W. Leibniz claimed that there are potential “innate ideas” and held that ideas, as inclinations, endowments, habits, or natural potentialities, are gifts in our mind. G. Berkeley, a subjective idealist, held that ideas are not reflections of objective things, that the emergence of ideas does not need to assume the existence of external objects, therefore, the ideas in the mind are the origin of the things that constitute reality, and the things are a “collection of ideas”. Starting out from objective idealism and mystical speculation, Hegel held that the “absolute Idea” is the eternal spiritual substance of objective being and the origin and the soul of the whole world, thus reversing the true relations of development between nature, the history of society, thinking and ideas. Feuerbach’s metaphysical materialism treated ideas as passive and reactive contemplation.

When the word idea is used in the Marxist philosophy, it has three meanings in the concrete context: (1) It refers to representation or images. Ideas are considered to be forms of reflection of objective reality and a subjective reflection of objective existence. In Anti-Dühring, Engels pointed out that all ideas are taken from experience, are reflections—true or distorted—of reality. (2) It refers to people’s views and knowledge of things. Marx and Engels pointed out in The German Ideology that men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc.—real, active men. Here the concept refers to men’s knowledge of the objectively existing actual life-process, the correspondence between ideas and objective existence. (3) It refers to the systematic and theoretical formations of ideas formed by the reflection of social being by social consciousness. In the vivid intuitive stage of reflection of the objective world by man, it refers to the simplest concepts and artistic images such as sensation, perception and representation. In the stage of abstract thinking, i.e., all forms of reflection such as dialectical concepts and their mutual transitions, judgments, reasoning, and even typical artistic images and their dialectical unity of opposites, etc. Marx and Engels clearly pointed out the principle difference between the materialist and the idealist conception of history in terms of the formation of ideas: It has not, like the idealistic conception of history, in every period to look for a category, but remains constantly on the real ground of history; it does not explain practice from the idea but explains the formation of ideas from material practice. As systematic and theoretical formations of ideas, they arise from and develop along with social practice, and their truthful must also be tested by social practice. Lenin emphasized that man by his practice proves the objective correctness of his ideas, concepts, knowledge, science. Men’s social practice is the sole criterion to test whether ideas are correct.

Marx emphasized that the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. The theory of ideas of Marxist philosophy has abandoned the thought of metaphysical materialism to conceive ideas only in the form of the object or of contemplation and to regard them as passive reflections of the objective world, and scientifically explained the reality of ideas and their power based on social practice. It holds that ideas not only reflect the objective reality, and that it is also possible to construct idea-objects for practical innovation according to the reflection of the objective reality and the grasp of the laws, and take them as the purpose of practice. Through the material practical activity of reshaping the objective world, ideal innovation is transformed into practical innovation and objectified ideal objects are created. Ideas are the unity of independence and continuity; ideas of each epoch, once they are formed, will become a link in the chain of the history of ideas and present a continuity, while ideas will also display independence due to their particular historical accumulation, traditional habits, cultural background, and act as a lever of the development of society or as a fetter upon it. Ideas are the unity of inheritance and innovation; the development of ideas is a dialectical evolutionary process, and inheritance refers to the historical inheritance of ideas between human generations, absorbing the essence and rejecting the dross, both overcoming and retaining, an affirmation in negation. Innovation refers to carrying out an innovation of ideas in practice, that new ideas with epochal features are created on the basis of inheriting the ideas of previous generations. Ideas have a social and historical nature.