Introduction to Philosophy
Quiz 6: Chapter 3 (Part 2 Kant and Relativism)
Name
True/False Questions: T = True F = False (1 point each)
1. T
F
Immanuel Kant began his theory with the view that the principles of Euclidian geometry and Newtonian
physics do give us knowledge.
2. T
F
Kant tried to form a compromise between rationalism and empiricism.
3. T
F
Kant believed that the truth of "all events will have a cause" was based on experience.
4. T
F
According to your text, objectivism is a dogmatic, authoritarian position in which the speaker claims that he
or she has the absolute truth.
5. T
F
If one is an epistemological relativist, then one is committed to being an ethical relativist also.
6. T
F
The view that all truth is relative to a particular culture is known as "subjecitivism."
7. T
F
According to your text, Friedrich Nietzsche had nothing but disdain for subjective relativism.
8. T
F
Nietzsche claimed that his philosophy provided absolute truth, while other philosophies were simply
interpretations of the objective truth.
Multiple Choice (1 point each)
9. Which of the following claims did Immanuel Kant assert?
A. All our knowledge begins with experience.
B. Experience alone cannot give us universal and necessary knowledge.
C. The mind constructs the objects of knowledge.
D. all of the above
10. Kant says that the notions of self, cosmos, and God
A. are irrational and should be discarded.
B. cannot be known, but are useful in regulating our thought.
C. are the clearest and best proven beliefs we have.
D. can be objects of knowledge, but only by formulating rational proofs about them.
11. "Kant's Copernican revolution" refers to his proposal to
A. overthrow the king.
B. replace Newtonian physics with his theory.
C. reverse the relationship between knowledge and its objects in epistemology.
D. overthrow the claims of empiricism and return to pure rationalism.
12. The text referred to Kant's position as "constructivism" because
A. it was not negative and destructive like previous theories.
B. he tried to construct a bridge between scientific knowledge and religious knowledge.
C. he believed all knowledge was constructed out of the innate ideas in the mind.
D. he claimed that the mind forms its objects out of the raw data of experience.
13. In Kant's terminology, things-as-they-appear-to-us are called _________ and things-in themselves are called
________.
A. complex ideas/simple ideas
B. ideas/material objects
C. the phenomena/the noumena
D. secondary qualities/primary qualities
14. According to Kant, the mind makes knowledge possible by
A. creating reality out of itself.
B. imposing its own form on the materials of experience.
C. mirroring the structures of reality.
D. discovering the innate truths within the mind.
15. Kant says that space and time are
A. ways that the mind structures experience.
B. objective features of reality outside of us.
C. necessarily experienced the same by both God and humans.
D. mysterious and impossible to talk about.
16. Kant's categories of the understanding are
A. habits of thought acquired through experience.
B. his name for the laws of logic.
C. laws of nature discovered by science.
D. organizing principles the mind brings to experience.
17. Kant believed we could have objective, universal, and necessary knowledge about the world of experience because
A. God gives us our ideas and he would not deceive us.
B. reality imposes its structure on our minds.
C. everyone's mind structures experience in the same universal and necessary way.
D. we have innate ideas that are written on the soul and do not have to depend on the contents of experience to
know reality.
18. According to Kant, the traditional proofs for the existence of God are
A. an attempt to go beyond experience and the limits of reason.
B. flawed and, therefore, atheism is the only reasonable option.
C. valid and should convince any honest seeker of the truth.
D. weak, but it is still possible that some future thinker will come up with a solid proof.
19. What would be the best label for the following claim? "In our society, science is the standard of truth, but in other
societies religious leaders are the standard of truth. What is genuinely true or false depends on what society you are
in."
A. solipsism
B. subjective relativism
C. cultural relativism
D. constructivism
20. According to Friedrich Nietzsche, a fact is
A. something that can be scientifically proven.
B. something that can be demonstrated through rational a priori proofs.
C. an objective feature of the world that is independent of our theories.
D. nothing more than an interpretation of reality.
21. Nietzsche's "perspectivism" was his theory that
A. a good painting is one in which perspective is accurately portrayed.
B. we all see things in different ways, but only one perspective is the correct one.
C. we never have objective knowledge, but only our subjective perspectives.
D. we tend to distort reality, but with care we can learn to reason objectively.
22. Nietzsche compares philosophers to lawyers (advocates) because they
A. are sincere seekers after the truth.
B. use rational arguments.
C. are spokesmen for their prejudices.
D. take the side of the defenseless and downtrodden.
23. Nietzsche says that every great philosophy is
A. like a window that reveals reality to us.
B. a record of how the truth has been revealed to its age.
C. something of enduring value that will be true for all ages.
D. a personal confession and an unconscious memoir.
24. When Nietzsche says that "God is dead," he means that
A. his personal faith had died.
B. in the act of creation, the living God became one with the world.
C. the notion of "God" is no longer relevant to our culture.
D. people have turned away from the true God.
25. Friedrich Nietzsche's epistemology is an example of
A. subjectivism.
B. rationalism.
C. empiricism.
D. skepticism.
26. How is the position of epistemological relativism similar to Kant's epistemology? How do the two positions differ? (5
points)
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