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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What qualities does Locke say things have?
(a) Practical and symbolic.
(b) Primary and secondary.
(c) Essential and contingent.
(d) Simple and complex.

2. Which predecessor is Locke attacking with his discussion of understanding?
(a) Milton.
(b) Leibniz.
(c) Erasmus.
(d) Descartes.

3. What does Locke use as an example of abstraction?
(a) People.
(b) Nature.
(c) History.
(d) Chairs.

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

5. What did Locke study first?
(a) The origins of understanding.
(b) The mechanisms for measuring understanding.
(c) The weight of understanding.
(d) Differences in animal and human understanding.

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

7. What example does Locke use for an idea that is innate?
(a) The idea that the earth is the center of the universe.
(b) The idea that God is infallible.
(c) The idea that things cannot simultaneously be and not be.
(d) The idea that man arose from apes through slow changes.

8. How would you characterize Locke's description of knowledge in his introduction?
(a) Pragmatic.
(b) Absolutist.
(c) Idealist.
(d) Relativist.

9. 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 limits the fields in which we can know anything.
(c) It does not invalidate it.
(d) It means that man has to devise better tools for experimenting.

10. What are modes, according to Locke?
(a) Methods of describing things.
(b) Opposites.
(c) Halves of a paradox.
(d) Combinations of substances.

11. What does Locke show about the ideas people claim are innate?
(a) That not everyone believes them.
(b) That they are questionable.
(c) That they are determined by cultural forces.
(d) That they are culturally relative.

12. What does Locke say about the knowledge of how property rules should be established?
(a) It must be doubted.
(b) It must be learned.
(c) It should be scientifically evaluated.
(d) It must be established anew each generation.

13. How does Locke say an object's qualities can change?
(a) He says that qualities can change in memory.
(b) He says that qualities can change upon reflection.
(c) He says that things' qualities can change depending on who you talk to.
(d) He says that a thing's color can change in different light.

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

15. What does Locke say perception creates?
(a) Symbols.
(b) Language.
(c) Ideas.
(d) Experiences.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Locke use walnuts to illustrate the qualities of things?

2. Where do primary qualities originate, according to Locke?

3. What idea does NOT come from sensation, according to Locke?

4. What does Locke say about the difference between reflection and sensation?

5. What does Locke describe the mind as?

(see the answer keys)

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