View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is needed by a strong man who seeks intensity and experience at the cost of tragic woe?

2. What, according to Schopenhauer, is the only way to convince someone?

3. What does Spencer define as the subjective accompaniment of mechanically evolved nerve processes?

4. What early 19th century philosopher is included in a group of pessimists, poets and composers considered the voices of the age?

5. In what work does Spencer freely express his best ideas with suggestive generalization and political philosophy?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Kant respond after reading Berkeley, Hume, and Rousseau?

2. Describe the two periods of Bertram Russell's philosophical life.

3. Define the contrast between Bergson and Croce.

4. What is the value Kant sees of the Bible and the churches?

5. Analyzing religious ideas in First Principles, what does Spencer conclude?

6. How does Kant's work ironically work against his stated aim?

7. In his The Critique of Pure Reason how does Kant say knowledge comes?

8. How does Schopenhauer's philosophy sound like modern merchandising?

9. Explain briefly how Russell became agnostic.

10. Describe briefly Spencer's definition of life.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay on the death of Socrates. In your essay discuss the devotion of his students and why Socrates chooses not to escape Athens but drink the hemlock instead. Be sure to include the real reason Socrates is sentenced to death.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay on a priori truth regardless of our experience. Explain in your essay the meaning of a priori and give examples of a priori universals that we cannot even imagine being otherwise.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay on Spencer's idea that a militant society exalts certain virtues and condones what other people might call crimes. Use the modern debate over the use of torture in wartime investigations as an example.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 657 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample