Appendix 41.

(975) [Reid and the meaning of idea]

Reid claims that 'idea' has two meanings, one for philosophers and the other for people in general. He wants us to reject the philosophers' meaning and keep the popular meaning. But, as I have said (cf. vol. 1, 99 ss.), I do not think he is in fact following common sense in this. What are the two claimed meanings of the word 'idea'? In philosophy, it means something in between us and objects, so that through ideas we know objects. For ordinary people, it means an operation of our mind with which we directly think of the objects themselves. To prove the existence of this second meaning, Reid argues as follows:

But if he can draw this conclusion from noting the meaning of 'to think of a thing', I can draw an opposite conclusion from noting the meaning of 'to have an idea'. According to me, this phrase expresses simply possession of a thing; the verb 'to have' expresses nothing more than possession. Consequently, 'to have an idea' expresses only a state of the mind which has the idea but not an operation of the mind. Now, if it is erroneous for me to draw the meaning of 'to think of a thing' from the meaning of 'to have an idea', it seems unreasonable to obtain the meaning 'to have an idea' from the meaning of 'to think of a thing'. I grant that the verb 'to think' expresses the operation of our spirit but this is precisely why I deny that the two phrases have the same meaning. I can have an idea without actually thinking of the thing of which I have the idea. The operation of the mind thinking of a thing is quite different from simply having the idea of the thing, that is, when the thing is not necessarily being thought of. Note, all languages, as far as I know, contain the two different expressions, 'to think of a thing' and 'to have the idea of a thing'. According to Reid's principles, this would not be the case if the common sense of people had not really intended to express two different things. If a language constantly makes a distinction by two words or phrases, the distinction must really exist. Reid himself uses this argument to counter Hume's inappropriate way of speaking (Essay on the Powers of the Human Mind, etc., Essay 1, c. 1, p. 20 ss.).

But does Reid's teaching on the exclusion of ideas contain anything solid? I think so. I agree with Reid when he says that philosophers generally erred not by accepting ideas as distinct from the operation of the spirit when it is thinking of things, but by the notion they gave to these ideas.

He distinguishes three things in human thought:

This expression ['thinking of it'] implies a mind that thinks, an act of that mind we call thinking, and an object about which we think. But, besides these three, the philosopher conceives that there is a fourth - to wit, the idea, which is the immediate object....I believe that idea, taken in this sense, to be a mere fiction of philosophers.

Some philosophers have certainly formed a concept of idea as the sole, perfect means through which we know real things. This is an error. The idea of a thing does not make anything real known to us; it presents only mere possibility. Idea is not the perfect, total means for knowing real things, as St. Thomas notes in many places; something else is needed for this information. Corporeal things therefore need a corporeal sense, with which we perceive directly the experience effected in us by the external powers we call bodies. The two elements of our perception and knowledge of bodies are the sensation of the bodies joined with the idea.

We must not think that we know subsistent bodies by means of ideas, as if these were perfect images of the bodies; this is a false concept of ideas. Bodies are powers acting directly on us, and our sense receives their action, but this individual perception is not the intellectual knowledge of them. We first form the intellectual perception and then separate the idea from this perception. This idea therefore, whose initial element and matter is the experienced sense of bodies themselves, is that which makes them known to us in a universal or intellectual way.

I think that the Scholastics meant this when they said that the idea abstracts from matter, that is, the idea does not present to us the real, subsistent thing of which it is not an adequate image; sensation is needed to give us knowledge of real bodies. In this sense, I myself accept that an idea is a kind of image or likeness, as I have explained in volume 1, App., no. 2.

I certainly do not accept in the general sense of touch a sensible species in addition to and really distinct from sensation. Any distinction lies solely in the different ways sensation is considered.
The observations made so far show how necessary it is to be more careful in determining the opinions of philosophers than Reid was, if opinions are not to be attributed them which they do not hold. For example, Garve, as a result of his further study of Plato's expressions, thinks that the relationship between ideas and objects established by Plato is not the relationship described by Reid, that is, making the idea a middle term between the mind and objects (cf. Legendorum philosophorum veterum praecepta nonnulla et exempla).

Nevertheless, I give Reid some merit for saying that to call the idea a means of knowing things is somewhat equivocal. In fact, like Reid, I say that the intellectual perception of bodies is direct (that is, reasoning is not a means of perception, as he says) (Essay on the Powers, etc., Essay 2, p. 100). As soon as our sense perceives a body, our understanding also perceives it directly and makes a first judgment without any intermediary. Sense and understanding are therefore two powers which directly and as it were pari passu co-operate in the perception of a body. The pure idea of a body follows on the perception in so far as in the idea we abstract from the actual existence of the body. On the other hand, in perception, we still think of the presence or subsistence of a body as an agent acting on us. In this sense, the idea of a body is not a means but an element of the perception of bodies.