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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What purpose does Wilson say dreams serve?
(a) Telling the conscious self about the doings of its unconscious.
(b) Giving the self access to the collective unconscious.
(c) Improving responses relevant to survival.
(d) Developing the soul through cathexes.

2. Who proposed the idea of unity of species that follow a few simple laws?
(a) Solon.
(b) Plato.
(c) Socrates.
(d) Thales of Miletus.

3. What did Laplace pioneer?
(a) The use of probability in physics.
(b) The use of statistics in politics.
(c) The use of telescopes in astronomy.
(d) The notion of inalienable human rights.

4. What methods did Descartes use in his work?
(a) Deduction and analysis.
(b) Induction and synthesis.
(c) Experiential learning and induction.
(d) Hypothesis and experimentation.

5. What political movement did Condorcet inspire?
(a) The abolition of slavery in French colonies.
(b) The American Revolution.
(c) The abolition of slavery in the New World.
(d) The French Revolution.

6. How does Wilson characterize the current state of knowledge?
(a) Fragmented.
(b) Irreconcilable.
(c) Unified.
(d) Interconnected.

7. When did the Enlightenment end, in Wilson's account?
(a) 1776.
(b) 1794.
(c) 1742.
(d) 1789.

8. What does Wilson say was the consequence of Robespierre's employment of the concept of the general will?
(a) The French went to war with Russia.
(b) 17,000 Frenchmen were killed.
(c) Napoleon rose to power.
(d) The French undermined their own revolution.

9. What qualities of mind drove the techno-scientific age?
(a) Compassion and empathy.
(b) Mathematics and industrialism.
(c) Justice and equality.
(d) Curiosity and creativity.

10. What did Descartes argue for, in Wilson's account?
(a) The integration of historical will and individual will.
(b) Universal peace.
(c) The separation of mind and matter.
(d) The unification knowledge.

11. What does science use as proof of a theory?
(a) Repeated experiments.
(b) Hypotheses.
(c) Natural laws.
(d) Phenomena witnessed by neutral observers.

12. What was it about armies that Wilson was struck by?
(a) How they were subsidized by communities or nations.
(b) How they were supported by an entire society.
(c) How they were close brotherhoods.
(d) How they were organized.

13. Where do the images of snakes in dreams likely come from, in Wilson's account?
(a) The Bible story of the garden of Eden.
(b) The intuition of subterranean experience.
(c) The mystic significance of snakes.
(d) A widespread fear of snakes.

14. What are the nerve cells in the brain called?
(a) Axons.
(b) Dendrites.
(c) Protons.
(d) Neurons.

15. What does Wilson say we discover when we link social sciences, biology, ethics and environmental policy?
(a) Each field bolsters reasoning in other fields.
(b) Fields have their own unique disciplines.
(c) Academic research involves similar intellectual work no matter the field.
(d) Fields need to have unified sources of funding.

Short Answer Questions

1. What claims do philosophers make for the unification of knowledge?

2. What does Wilson call the discrete pieces of evidence?

3. Under what circumstances are theories accepted universally?

4. What does local positivism fail to distinguish between, in Wilson's narration?

5. When does sleep occur, in molecular terms?

(see the answer keys)

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