Meanings
- uncountableA combinatorial "science of ideas", for the categorization and analysis of any kind of idea.
According to Gunkel, ideonomy is at the same time a fundamental science and applied science. The subject of research is ideas as such and the applicable laws.
2022, Guido Enthoven, Seweryn Rudnicki, Rico Sneller, Towards a science of ideas, page 102 more examples
My current favorite list is the 186 things ideonomy can do. As a young aspiring scientist, with nary a hint of irony, Gunkel sought to pitch ideonomy as the "use of same to describe, generate, investigate, or otherwise treat all possible ideas related to any subject, problem, thing, or other idea."
2023, Marijn van der Poll, Rightbrainer: The Survival Handbook of Original ThoughtsAs human and artificial intelligence supplant gene-based evolution the next and perhaps final stage in this progression may be ideonomy, the science of ideas, which can proceed at the much faster speed of thought.
2023, Peter Hetherington, The Power Matrix
Origin
Championed as the science of ideas by Patrick M. Gunkel (1947–2017), from ideo- + -nomy. Although Gunkel stated on the “About” page of his ideonomy website that “supposedly the word ideonomy was first coined by the French Encyclopedists” to refer to a science of ideas, no direct evidence of this coinage has been found to date.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
ideonomy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ideonomy
“ideonomy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ideonomy. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ideonomy,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ideonomy.
Source: ideonomy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.