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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Locke say we do with ideas?
(a) Aspire to them.
(b) Name and organize them.
(c) Doubt and hate.
(d) Eat and digest them.

2. What claim is Locke attacking in "Essay Concerning Human Understanding"?
(a) The claim that people can merge compassion and reason.
(b) The claim to use pure reason in thinking.
(c) The claim that people know the world solely through the senses.
(d) The claim that people can introspect into understanding.

3. Where does Locke say ideas come from?
(a) Inspiration.
(b) Senses.
(c) God.
(d) Experience.

4. How does Locke define complex ideas?
(a) Combinations of simple ideas.
(b) The field of experience that inspires ideas.
(c) Simple ideas that vary based on definitions.
(d) Unresolved ideas out of which simple ideas come.

5. How does Locke use garlic to illustrate his argument about the qualities of things?
(a) Garlic has many different stages of development.
(b) Garlic has cleaning properties in addition to nutritional uses.
(c) Different cultures use it for different things.
(d) The taste is different if it is cooked.

6. What happens to a particular idea when you practice abstraction?
(a) You see the opposite of the idea.
(b) You use it for religious purposes.
(c) You see it in context.
(d) You subtract particulars.

7. Where does understanding originate, according to Locke?
(a) The genes.
(b) The collective unconscious.
(c) God.
(d) The senses.

8. What does Locke say is another word for retention?
(a) Ego.
(b) Intelligence.
(c) Memory.
(d) Wit.

9. Composition is the ability to do what, according to Locke?
(a) Combine ideas.
(b) Use ideas for practical purposes.
(c) Invent new ideas.
(d) Replace ideas with other ideas.

10. What does reflection create ideas out of?
(a) History.
(b) Language itself.
(c) The mind's own operations.
(d) Sensation.

11. What consequence does the fact that knowledge is limited have on our knowledge, according to Locke?
(a) It obligates people to constant conversation.
(b) It does not invalidate it.
(c) It limits the fields in which we can know anything.
(d) It means that man has to devise better tools for experimenting.

12. What does Locke say number indicate about a thing?
(a) That it cannot be split without being a different thing.
(b) That it takes on a different shape in the aggregate.
(c) How frequently it occurs.
(d) That it has the ability to replicate itself.

13. How does Locke define 'idea'?
(a) The result of understanding.
(b) The object of understanding.
(c) The source of understanding.
(d) The purpose of understanding.

14. Discerning is the ability to do what, according to Locke?
(a) Test an idea's truth value.
(b) Correct one's ideas.
(c) Evaluate the propriety of things.
(d) Distinguish between things.

15. What does Locke say is his purpose in "Essay Concerning Human Understanding"?
(a) To pin down the mystical origins of understanding.
(b) To break understanding into its parts.
(c) To reconcile the tension between modes of understanding.
(d) To define a unified theory of understanding.

Short Answer Questions

1. What quality does Locke say innate principles lack?

2. What did Locke study first?

3. What does Locke say justifies moral principles?

4. What does Locke say was the second thing he wanted to study?

5. Where do ideas come from, according to Locke?

(see the answer keys)

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