Quiz: The Phenomenology of Mind

All 50 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. Why is the struggle of virtue against the course of the world a sham-fight?

   Virtue has no weapons of its own and can only appeal to the conscience of its enemy The course of the world refuses to fight and simply withdraws into private interest Its weapons are part of the good it defends, so it must spare even its enemy’s weapons Virtue wins at once by surprise, before the course of the world can take up arms
2. 2. According to the passage Hegel quotes from Lichtenberg, how will an honest man answer someone who says his face shows he is a rogue at heart?

   By showing his good deeds With a box on the ear By consulting a phrenologist By changing his expression
3. 3. According to the opening of the section on active reason, where is reason truly realised?

   In the pleasures of the individual In the isolated thinker who withdraws from society into himself In the life of a free nation, through its customs and laws In the observation of nature by science
4. 4. What simple experiment does Hegel use to test the truth “The Now is night”?

   Pointing at the moon Writing it down and reading it again at noon Asking another person whether they agree Comparing it with the hour shown on a clock
5. 5. What image does the Preface use for the relation between successive philosophical systems?

   Rivers flowing together into one sea Soldiers in a line of battle Bricks laid one upon another in a wall Bud, blossom and fruit of a plant
6. 6. What is the fate of the “beautiful soul” that refuses to act?

   It founds a new religious community of the faithful It becomes a world-historical hero It wastes away in yearning, vanishing like a shapeless vapour It turns back into the Kantian moral consciousness of pure duty
7. 7. What does the pleasure-seeking consciousness find when it plunges into life?

   It is converted to the law of the heart by a priest’s preaching It “took” life but laid hold on death, meeting a blind, alien necessity It finds lasting happiness and complete fulfilment in union with another person It returns, disappointed, to the patient observation of nature and its laws
8. 8. What does Hegel contrast with organic nature, which he says “has no history”?

   The geological history of the earth’s crust and its successive strata The development of the individual organism from germ to maturity The inorganic world of minerals Spirit’s shapes of consciousness, unfolding as world history
9. 9. Hegel illustrates the language of the “disintegrated” consciousness with a quotation describing whom?

   A musician mixing some thirty airs of every kind Diogenes mocking Alexander from his tub in Corinth An actor playing Antigone before the assembled Athenians A priest preaching repentance to a crowd in the market
10. 10. What does Hegel say experiments show about “resin-electricity” and “glass-electricity”?

    Only resin can be electrified; glass merely conducts the charge They are two distinct kinds of electrical matter that can never combine at all They are just positive and negative electricity, bound to no particular body Electricity is a form of chemical combination between resin, glass and the air
11. 11. Why does Hegel think claws and teeth are good marks for classifying animals?

    They are the easiest parts to see and measure in museum specimens They show what climate and soil the animal is adapted to living in They survive as fossils long after the rest of the body has decayed The animal itself uses them to separate and preserve itself
12. 12. To which ancient rites does Hegel send those who insist on the reality of objects of sense?

    The Roman Saturnalia and its feasting in December The oracle of Apollo at Delphi and its priestess The Eleusinian mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus The Olympic games held in honour of Zeus at Olympia
13. 13. Which statement does the Preface make about the Absolute?

    It is a mere postulate of practical reason, as Kant held It is given complete and immediate at the very beginning It can be known only by feeling It is essentially a result, truly itself only at the end
14. 14. According to the Preface, everything depends on grasping the ultimate truth how?

    Not only as Substance but as Subject as well As an unknowable thing-in-itself beyond experience As the sum of sense impressions As pure Substance alone, as Spinoza had taught
15. 15. Which image does the Preface use for truth as movement?

    A grocer’s labelled pots on a shelf A bacchanalian revel where no one is sober A still lake mirroring the sky A clockwork mechanism
16. 16. What analogy does Hegel use against those who think anyone can philosophise without training?

    Having a voice does not make one a singer Having money does not make one a merchant Having eyes does not make one a painter Having feet does not make one a shoemaker
17. 17. According to Hegel, what is to be seen behind the “curtain” of appearance?

    A world of fixed laws The mind of God The thing-in-itself, which cannot be known Nothing, unless we ourselves go behind it
18. 18. When every individual sets up the law of his own heart, what does public order become?

    The ethical order of a free nation, living by its own customs A perfect harmony of all hearts under one common law A theocracy ruled by priests A state of war of each against all, the “course of the world”
19. 19. What does Hegel say lies behind the complaint that the man without morality comes off well?

    Philosophical scepticism Belief in divine punishment hereafter Envy assuming the cloak of morality A sincere love of justice and desert
20. 20. According to the section on culture, into what does the noble consciousness’s “heroism of dumb service” pass?

    The commercial pursuit of wealth The heroism of flattery Open rebellion against the monarch Withdrawal into the monastery
21. 21. What are the three realisations of spirit in religion, in order?

    Religion of Light, Religion of the Law, Religion of Love Natural Religion, the Religion of Art, Revealed Religion Fetishism, Catholicism, Protestantism Polytheism, Judaism, Islam
22. 22. What happens to the command “Every one ought to speak the truth” when healthy reason examines it?

    It proves self-evident and unconditional, binding every person without exception It is replaced by the command to love one’s neighbour as oneself It is shown to be a law of the family, not of the state and its citizens It must add “if he knows the truth”, and so turns contingent
23. 23. What everyday thing does Hegel use to illustrate a “thing with many properties”?

    A sheet of paper A tree A piece of salt A magnet
24. 24. What does Hegel say about what is “familiar”?

    Being familiar, it is not thereby known It should be accepted on common sense It is the proper object of mathematics It is the surest basis of knowledge
25. 25. How does Hegel describe an Absolute in which “all is one”?

    As a coin stamped and issued ready-made by the mint As a bacchanalian revel As a ladder to science As the night in which all cows are black
26. 26. According to Hegel, why is no hero a hero to his valet?

    Because heroism exists only in epic poetry and on the stage Because heroes are really no better than other people in private life Because valets are paid to spread rumours Because the valet is a valet, seeing only the man with personal wants
27. 27. At the end of the book, what does “History comprehended conceptually” form?

    The end of historical time and the beginning of eternity The proof of God’s existence The recollection and the golgotha of Absolute Spirit The constitution of a fully rational and free modern state
28. 28. What words express the pain of the “unhappy consciousness” in the chapter on revealed religion?

    “God is dead” “I think, therefore I am” “All is vanity” “The Lord is my shepherd”
29. 29. What does reason as tester of laws conclude about property and community of goods?

    Both are commanded by divine law and need no testing Taken simply, neither contradicts itself, so the test cannot decide Private property contradicts itself, but community of goods does not Community of goods contradicts itself, but private property does not
30. 30. What is the family’s specific ethical act towards the individual?

    The education of children for citizenship Help in time of need The care and burial of the dead Earning wealth for the household
31. 31. How does the Introduction describe the road that natural consciousness travels?

    As a circle with no end As a pleasant stroll of discovery As a royal road to science As a highway of despair
32. 32. Why, according to Hegel, does the idealist’s claim that reason is all reality sound unintelligible to others?

    It denies that other people exist It states a result and forgets the path that led to it It contradicts the natural sciences of the day It is expressed in Latin technical terms
33. 33. Where, according to Hegel, does self-consciousness finally find its satisfaction?

    Only in another self-consciousness In consuming the objects of desire In the bare certainty “I am I” In the contemplation of nature
34. 34. Under absolute freedom, what takes the place of being guilty?

    Being of noble birth Being wealthy Being suspected Being a foreigner
35. 35. Which two sets of laws does Hegel say have been combined into one law of universal attraction?

    The laws of heat, of light and of sound in a single ether The laws of chemical affinity and of organic growth and decay The laws of electricity and of magnetism, as Oersted’s needle showed The laws of falling bodies and of planetary motion
36. 36. In Hegel’s account of tragedy, what does the chorus represent?

    The poet himself, speaking to the audience in his own person The common people, whose wisdom is powerless to act The hero’s inner conscience The gods of Olympus
37. 37. Whom does Hegel contrast with the palmist, as someone who thought a person’s fate could be known only after the whole life?

    Solon Socrates Croesus Lavater
38. 38. What does the Introduction call the pathway to science, considered in its content?

    Science of the Experience of Consciousness Critique of Pure Reason System of Transcendental Idealism Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
39. 39. Which attitude does Hegel describe as being free “on the throne as well as in fetters”?

    Scepticism Lordship Stoicism The unhappy consciousness
40. 40. To what does Hegel compare common sense and direct revelation offered in place of philosophy?

    Water offered for wine Paper money offered in place of gold coin Chicory offered as a substitute for coffee A map offered for the country
41. 41. What does Hegel say is the sole work accomplished by universal freedom?

    A written constitution dividing the powers of the state The restoration of the old estates of the realm under a new name Death, as meaningless as cleaving a head of cabbage A new universal church of reason, with its own festivals
42. 42. In the section on conscience, what does an individual who increases his property consider his conduct to be, while others call it fraud?

    An act of courage and self-assertion against his envious neighbours A command laid on him by the positive law of the state A sin he must confess before the religious community and atone for A duty to maintain himself and his family and be useful to others
43. 43. In the condition of right, how does the “lord and master of the world” regard himself?

    As the absolute person and a living God As guardian of the divine law As the servant of the citizens As one person among equals
44. 44. How, in the life-and-death struggle, is freedom obtained?

    Solely by risking life By making a contract with the other By killing the other By fleeing the struggle
45. 45. What proposition does Hegel say observation finally arrives at?

    That the existence of mind is a bone That mind cannot be known at all That the mind is the brain’s reflection That the soul resides in the pineal gland
46. 46. What category does Hegel present as the positive truth of the Enlightenment?

    Utility, the useful Pure duty for duty’s sake Honour Beauty, the beautiful
47. 47. In the world of culture, which two actual realities embody the abstract ideas of Good and Bad?

    Master and bondsman Family and community Faith and reason State power and wealth
48. 48. How does Hegel answer the question whether it is permissible to delude a people?

    It is never permissible, because lying to a people is always and everywhere wrong Only the priests may decide, since they alone know the true content of the faith Pointless: a people cannot be deceived about the inner certainty of its faith It is permissible whenever the deception preserves public order and obedience to the law
49. 49. What should surprise observational psychology, according to Hegel?

    That the laws of thought can be measured exactly like physical forces That every mind has exactly the same inclinations, talents and passions That animals have no mental faculties at all That so many faculties sit side by side in the mind as in a bag
50. 50. How does Hegel describe the work of spirit as “artificer”, before it has grasped the thought of itself?

    As free play, like children dancing at a village festival As instinctive working, like bees building their cells As the inspired speech of a prophet As calculated labour for profit