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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. What does reflection create ideas out of?
(a) History.
(b) Sensation.
(c) The mind's own operations.
(d) Language itself.

2. How does Locke say ideas change over time?
(a) They solidify.
(b) They loosen up.
(c) They ossify.
(d) They degrade.

3. How does Locke describe experience?
(a) One of the ingredients of knowledge.
(b) The least important component in knowledge.
(c) The consequence of knowledge.
(d) The only foundation for knowledge.

4. Abstraction is the ability to do what, according to Locke?
(a) Turn an idea into a representative.
(b) Contradict an idea.
(c) Deduce a meaning from a category.
(d) See a concept in a sense experience.

5. What does Locke say is his purpose in "Essay Concerning Human Understanding"?
(a) To define a unified theory of understanding.
(b) To pin down the mystical origins of understanding.
(c) To break understanding into its parts.
(d) To reconcile the tension between modes of understanding.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which predecessor is Locke attacking with his discussion of understanding?

2. How does Locke try to look at understanding?

3. How does Locke define 'idea'?

4. For whom does Locke say national principles are natural?

5. What standard would an idea have to meet to be considered innate?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Locke say ideas come to us?

2. How does Locke define practical principles?

3. What does Locke mean when he says that the mind is a blank slate?

4. How does Locke define the faculty of perception?

5. What arguments does Locke make against Descartes' philosophy?

6. What is the difference between sensation and reflection, in Locke's account?

7. What benefits do humans receive from understanding, according to Locke?

8. What arguments does Locke make against innate knowledge?

9. How does Locke use the concept of number in his discussion of primary qualities?

10. What does Locke set out to do in Book II?

(see the answer keys)

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