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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. When does desire become action, in Locke's opinion?
(a) When it first stirs.
(b) When it develops into a philosophy.
(c) When it is unrequited.
(d) When it merges with will.

3. How does Locke describe pleasure and pain?
(a) Clear and powerful.
(b) Chaotic.
(c) Unintelligible.
(d) Unstructured.

4. What is it that contributed to the pervasiveness of language, in Locke's account?
(a) The simplicity of grammar.
(b) Legal disputes.
(c) Dictionaries.
(d) The use of general terms.

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

6. What effect does desire have on men, according to Locke?
(a) Makes men satisfied.
(b) Makes men powerful.
(c) Makes men unhappy.
(d) Makes men ambitious.

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

8. What makes philosophers think that people do not have free will?
(a) Divine will.
(b) The inexorable shape of history.
(c) The mathematics of probabilities.
(d) Causal necessity in nature.

9. What happens to the man in the illustration?
(a) He runs an experiment on another man.
(b) He is told that someone he knows has died.
(c) He is carried into another room while sleeping.
(d) He is given the ability to punish another man.

10. How does Locke define love?
(a) Mingling pleasure and pain.
(b) Seeking pleasure.
(c) Aspiring to improve oneself.
(d) Reflecting on something that causes delight.

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

12. How does Locke define will?
(a) Letting fate make decisions.
(b) Acting in accord with one's preferences.
(c) Searching for one's temperament.
(d) Following one's impulses.

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

14. What does Locke say pleasure and pain are the foundation for?
(a) Language.
(b) God and religion.
(c) Good and evil.
(d) Culture.

15. Where do pleasure and pain come from, according to Locke?
(a) The mind.
(b) History.
(c) God.
(d) Sensation.

Short Answer Questions

1. What branch of philosophy derives from Locke's ideas about pain and pleasure?

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

3. What happens when you strip away all the details of a thing, in Locke's account?

4. What does Locke use as a definition of active powers?

5. How does Locke define the essence of a thing?

(see the answer keys)

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