"confront ideas" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it in many contexts, such as when discussing different approaches to problem solving. For example: "We discussed various approaches to the problem, and then we decided to confront ideas to see which one would work best for our situation."
In recent years, writers such as Sheila Heti, Leslie Jamison, and Lena Dunham have published books and essays that confront ideas of self-surveillance, self-loathing, and self-respect with humor, sadness, and detailed descriptions of bodily functions, asking their readers to consider the boundaries that get placed around representations of women.
For, they would argue, we can only confront ideas through the language in which they are expressed.
We work together as a team, we are not afraid to confront ideas in positive but also challenging ways.
By being fearless in her sexual identity, she perverted the mainstream and caused millions of people to confront ideas surrounding gender, religion, and personal agency.
By mapping the journey and the time scale of the exchanges of these objects online, the collective intends to "confront ideas held around the possibilities for change, the scope of, and thus our understanding and interpretations of, our networks and territory".
I think that what happened is that people got too far away from the data, and confronting ideas with data.
"Education should be about confronting ideas you find really objectionable, figuring out why it is you find them objectionable, fashioning a reasoned argument against them, confronting the person you disagree with and trying to change their mind, being open to them changing your mind.
"Universities cannot be viewed as a sanctuary for comfort but rather as a crucible for confronting ideas," writes president Robert J. Zimmer.
College students do not need to be sheltered from ideas they may find offensive; they need to equip themselves to confront such ideas and address them with counterarguments.
Dr Annan said bets like the one he made with the Russian sceptics are one way to confront the ideas.
All of this, from questions about college's usefulness as pre-professional training to how today's students confront challenging ideas, concerns me.
