View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is a power, according to Locke?
(a) Something that moves things in natural cycles.
(b) Something that liberates people from fate.
(c) Something that acts as fate for people.
(d) Something that can make a change in the world.

2. How does Locke define the essence of a thing?
(a) The properties that distinguish it from other similar things.
(b) The being-in-time of each thing.
(c) The chemical composition of the thing.
(d) The divine intention in every thing.

3. What would happen if words referred to particular things, in Locke's opinion?
(a) Everyone would need to be an even larger language for classes of things.
(b) No one would understand each other's vocabulary.
(c) There would have to be a word for each thing.
(d) No one would know that classes of things existed.

4. How does Locke define truth in an idea?
(a) Proof can be shown mathematically.
(b) The truth is self-evident.
(c) Educated people can see the truth.
(d) An idea corresponds to the world.

5. What does Locke use as a definition of active powers?
(a) Gravity.
(b) Heat.
(c) Luck.
(d) Will or volition.

6. What do we have when a word can no longer be defined, according to Locke?
(a) The essence of an idea.
(b) Experience.
(c) Simple ideas.
(d) Visions.

7. Which grammatical particle does Locke examine in detail?
(a) In.
(b) Under.
(c) But.
(d) On.

8. Why don't most words refer to simple ideas, in Locke's account?
(a) Locke says that most words are general.
(b) Locke says that most simple ideas are too unspecific.
(c) Locke says that simple ideas are too pervasive.
(d) Locke says that there is too little room for interpretation in simple ideas.

9. What does Locke say each distinct idea is?
(a) An essence.
(b) A simple idea.
(c) A general idea.
(d) A word.

10. According to Locke, the lack of what would make social life impossible?
(a) Money.
(b) Manufacturing.
(c) Communication.
(d) Trade.

11. Who is guilty of reification, according to Locke?
(a) Materialist philosophers.
(b) Historians.
(c) Metaphysical philosophers.
(d) Scientists.

12. Which school of philosophy divided essences into real and nominal?
(a) Platonists.
(b) Thomists.
(c) Spinozans.
(d) Aristotelians.

13. How does Locke resolve the contradiction between people who believe in free will and people who do not?
(a) He says that determinism is determined in free choices in every moment.
(b) He says that the world has choices, even if people do not.
(c) He says that people have a choice whether to follow their wills.
(d) He says that there is indeterminism on a sub-atomic level, that allows for free choice.

14. Where does Locke say we see the origin of our idea of number?
(a) Trees in a forest.
(b) Our bodies and minds.
(c) Flocks of geese.
(d) Grains of sand.

15. How can we understand the properties of things, according to Locke?
(a) By meditating on the things.
(b) By breaking things into their constituent parts.
(c) By performing experiments on the things.
(d) By analyzing our ideas of those things.

Short Answer Questions

1. What makes philosophers think that people do not have free will?

2. What does Locke say about the form of signs and words?

3. How has God formed man, according to Locke?

4. Where do pleasure and pain come from, according to Locke?

5. What defines a civil word, according to Locke?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 554 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample