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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Historically, what is an attempt to discover and explain the ultimate nature of reality?
(a) physics
(b) theology
(c) biology
(d) metaphysics

2. By Spencer's time, what is the third stage of philosophical thought?
(a) a return to the purely metaphysical idea of truth and beauty
(b) scientific explanations from observation, hypothesis and experiment
(c) disregarding of all philosophical theory and religion
(d) starting from new scientific advances and data

3. What does Nietzsche do that gets him discharged from the military?
(a) challenges the commander
(b) disobeys an order
(c) takes unofficial leave
(d) falls off a horse

4. Where does Schopenhauer go to write a doctoral dissertation in philosophy?
(a) the library
(b) the university
(c) the monastery
(d) the country

5. Who is the author of Time and Free-will?
(a) Schopenhauer
(b) Descartes
(c) Henri Bergson
(d) Spencer

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Schopenhauer develop his blunt manner, realistic mind, and knowledge of the world and of men?

2. Who is the dominant philosophical thinker of the 19th Century?

3. What does Spencer call a rationalizing myth for belief that defies conception?

4. What defines Spencer as a man who considers philosophy a generalization of all science?

5. What does Spencer comment on long before Darwin's theory of natural selection becomes popular by the end of the 1800s?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain briefly how Russell became agnostic.

2. In his The Critique of Pure Reason how does Kant say knowledge comes?

3. Analyzing religious ideas in First Principles, what does Spencer conclude?

4. Briefly discuss Bergson's idea of creative evolution.

5. Describe Herbert Spencer as a man.

6. How does Spencer see his fame?

7. Describe briefly Spencer's definition of life.

8. How does Kant respond after reading Berkeley, Hume, and Rousseau?

9. What select group is Schopenhauer included in during the first half of the 19th century?

10. What does Nietzsche's first and only completed book prove?

(see the answer keys)

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