Idea vs. Factor — What's the Difference?

In common usage and in philosophy, ideas are abstract concepts. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object.

A circumstance, fact, or influence that contributes to a result

A thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action

A number or quantity that when multiplied with another produces a given number or expression

The aim or purpose

A level on a scale of measurement.

(in Platonic thought) an eternally existing pattern of which individual things in any class are imperfect copies.

Any of a number of substances in the blood, mostly identified by numerals, which are involved in coagulation.

Something, such as a thought or conception, that is the product of mental activity.

An agent who buys and sells goods on commission

An opinion, conviction, or principle

Another term for factorize

A plan, purpose, or goal

(of a company) sell (its invoices) to a factor

The gist or significance

One that actively contributes to an accomplishment, result, or process

A sense that something can happen; a notion or expectation

One who acts for someone else; an agent.

(Music) A theme or motif.

One who purchases accounts receivable at a discount.

In the philosophy of Plato, a non-physical form or archetype to which beings in phenomenal reality correspond only as imperfect replicas.

(Mathematics) One of two or more quantities that divides a given quantity without a remainder. For example, 2 and 3 are factors of 6; a and b are factors of ab.

In the philosophy of Kant, a concept of reason that is transcendent but nonempirical.

A quantity by which a stated quantity is multiplied or divided, so as to indicate an increase or decrease in a measurement

In the philosophy of Hegel, absolute truth; the complete and ultimate product of reason.

A gene. No longer in technical usage.

(Obsolete) A mental image of something remembered.

(Physiology) A substance that functions in a specific biochemical reaction or bodily process, such as blood coagulation.

(philosophy) An abstract archetype of a given thing, compared to which real-life examples are seen as imperfect approximations; pure essence, as opposed to actual examples.

To determine or indicate explicitly the factors of

(obsolete) The conception of someone or something as representing a perfect example; an ideal.

To engage in purchasing accounts receivable at a discount.

(obsolete) The form or shape of something; a quintessential aspect or characteristic.

(obsolete) A doer, maker; a person who does things for another person or organization.

An image of an object that is formed in the mind or recalled by the memory.

An agent or representative.

More generally, any result of mental activity; a thought, a notion; a way of thinking.

(legal)

A conception in the mind of something to be done; a plan for doing something, an intention.

A commission agent.

A purposeful aim or goal; intent

A person or business organization that provides money for another's new business venture; one who finances another's business.

A vague or fanciful notion; a feeling or hunch; an impression.

A business organization that lends money on accounts receivable or buys and collects accounts receivable.

(music) A musical theme or melodic subject.

One of the elements, circumstances, or influences which contribute to produce a result.

The transcript, image, or picture of a visible object, that is formed by the mind; also, a similar image of any object whatever, whether sensible or spiritual.

(mathematics) Any of various objects multiplied together to form some whole.

A general notion, or a conception formed by generalization.

(causal analysis) Influence; a phenomenon that affects the nature, the magnitude, and/or the timing of a consequence.

Hence: Any object apprehended, conceived, or thought of, by the mind; a notion, conception, or thought; the real object that is conceived or thought of.

(economics) A resource used in the production of goods or services, a factor of production.

A belief, option, or doctrine; a characteristic or controlling principle; as, an essential idea; the idea of development.

(Scotland) A steward or bailiff of an estate.

A plan or purpose of action; intention; design.

(transitive) To find all the factors of (a number or other mathematical object) (the objects that divide it evenly).

A rational conception; the complete conception of an object when thought of in all its essential elements or constituents; the necessary metaphysical or constituent attributes and relations, when conceived in the abstract.

To be a product of other objects.

A fiction object or picture created by the imagination; the same when proposed as a pattern to be copied, or a standard to be reached; one of the archetypes or patterns of created things, conceived by the Platonists to have excited objectively from eternity in the mind of the Deity.

To sell a debt or debts to an agent (the factor) to collect.

The content of cognition; the main thing you are thinking about;

One who transacts business for another; an agent; a substitute; especially, a mercantile agent who buys and sells goods and transacts business for others in commission; a commission merchant or consignee. He may be a home factor or a foreign factor. He may buy and sell in his own name, and he is intrusted with the possession and control of the goods; and in these respects he differs from a broker.

A personal view;

A steward or bailiff of an estate.

An approximate calculation of quantity or degree or worth;

One of the elements or quantities which, when multiplied together, form a product.

Your intention; what you intend to do;

One of the elements, circumstances, or influences which contribute to produce a result; a constituent; a contributory cause.

(music) melodic subject of a musical composition;

To resolve (a quantity) into its factors.

Anything that contributes causally to a result;

An abstract part of something;

Any of the numbers (or symbols) that form a product when multiplied together

One of two or more integers that can be exactly divided into another integer;

A businessman who buys or sells for another in exchange for a commission

An independent variable in statistics

(genetics) a segment of DNA that is involved in producing a polypeptide chain; it can include regions preceding and following the coding DNA as well as introns between the exons; it is considered a unit of heredity;

Resolve into factors;