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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What claim is Locke attacking in "Essay Concerning Human Understanding"?
(a) The claim to use pure reason in thinking.
(b) The claim that people know the world solely through the senses.
(c) The claim that people can introspect into understanding.
(d) The claim that people can merge compassion and reason.

2. Which is NOT a category of complex ideas, according to Locke?
(a) Modes.
(b) Substances.
(c) Relations.
(d) Styles.

3. What does Locke say the mind is before it has experiences?
(a) A white piece of paper.
(b) A history of turmoil.
(c) A power keg.
(d) A set of dispositions.

4. What does Locke say about this standard for whether an idea is innate?
(a) He says that it is a kettle of fish.
(b) He says it is a bird of a different color.
(c) He says that it is too wide a net.
(d) He says that it is too high a hurdle to pass.

5. Which concept was beyond the sphere of Locke's inquiry?
(a) What the mind is.
(b) Where our beliefs come from.
(c) Why we should or should not believe certain things.
(d) Why some beliefs are better than others.

6. What quality does Locke say innate principles lack?
(a) Translatability.
(b) Universal consent.
(c) Presentability.
(d) Variability.

7. What are modes, according to Locke?
(a) Halves of a paradox.
(b) Combinations of substances.
(c) Methods of describing things.
(d) Opposites.

8. What does Locke describe the mind as?
(a) A cultural storehouse.
(b) A library.
(c) A blank slate.
(d) A battlefield.

9. What does Locke use an example to illustrate mode?
(a) Science.
(b) Time.
(c) Space.
(d) Water.

10. What is the contemporary name for Locke's field of inquiry?
(a) Existentialism.
(b) Epistemology.
(c) Ontology.
(d) Comparative religion.

11. What limitation does Locke describe in human faculties?
(a) Compassion is removed from understanding.
(b) Language is never more than self-referential.
(c) Reason is closed to direct perception.
(d) Envy is bound to the passions.

12. What does Locke use as an example of abstraction?
(a) People.
(b) Nature.
(c) History.
(d) Chairs.

13. How are primary qualities different from secondary qualities?
(a) Secondary qualities will not change.
(b) Primary qualities will not change.
(c) Primary qualities are the unification of all the secondary qualities.
(d) Secondary qualities depend on something innate about the thing.

14. What standard would an idea have to meet to be considered innate?
(a) It would be secret and unspoken.
(b) It would have to be approved by a majority.
(c) Everyone would have to believe it.
(d) No one would be able to capture or limit it.

15. How does Locke use garlic to illustrate his argument about the qualities of things?
(a) Garlic has many different stages of development.
(b) Different cultures use it for different things.
(c) Garlic has cleaning properties in addition to nutritional uses.
(d) The taste is different if it is cooked.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Locke describe the work principles do?

2. What does Locke say was the second thing he wanted to study?

3. How would you characterize Locke's description of knowledge in his introduction?

4. What does Locke say about sensations that an infant feels in utero?

5. What does Locke show about the ideas people claim are innate?

(see the answer keys)

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