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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 about words that cannot be defined any further?
(a) They are general words.
(b) They are essential ideas.
(c) They are simple ideas.
(d) They are complex ideas.

2. What are people who believe in human freedom called?
(a) Relativists.
(b) Determinists.
(c) Libertarians.
(d) Fatalists.

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

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

5. What does Locke say the increase of our intellectual powers follows?
(a) Simplification of ideas.
(b) Expansion of vocabulary.
(c) Standardization of terminology.
(d) Abstraction of ideas.

6. What does Locke describe as an abuse of words?
(a) Using words without clear meaning.
(b) Using words incorrectly deliberately.
(c) Inventing meanings for words.
(d) Using words to insult people.

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

8. What is the consequence of using words to refer to personal ideas, according to Locke?
(a) Madness.
(b) Art.
(c) Prophesy.
(d) Unintelligibility.

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

10. What modern movement did Locke prefigure in his arguments about philosophical language?
(a) Ontology.
(b) Ordinary language philosophy.
(c) Relativists.
(d) Deconstruction.

11. What are people who do not believe in free will called?
(a) Relativists.
(b) Fatalists.
(c) Ontologists.
(d) Determinists.

12. How does Locke define the difference between freedom and will?
(a) Freedom is the ability to act; will is a type of power.
(b) Freedom is riding light in the harness; will is the engine for progress.
(c) Freedom is the ability to let an internal power dictate one's actions; will is the source of the internal power.
(d) Freedom is the ability to act; will is the freedom to choose.

13. What are all words generated by, in Locke's account?
(a) Experiences.
(b) Feelings.
(c) Chaos.
(d) Ideas.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Locke say words refer to?

2. Where does Locke say we see the origin of our idea of number?

3. What do we have when a word can no longer be defined, according to Locke?

4. What does Locke say liberty is aimed at?

5. What does Locke say is the purpose of language?

(see the answer keys)

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