Quiz: The Phenomenology of Mind

15 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

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

   Virtue wins at once by surprise, before the course of the world can take up arms Its weapons are part of the good it defends, so it must spare even its enemy’s weapons 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
2. 2. At the end of the book, what does “History comprehended conceptually” form?

   The constitution of a fully rational and free modern state The proof of God’s existence The recollection and the golgotha of Absolute Spirit The end of historical time and the beginning of eternity
3. 3. How does Hegel answer the question whether it is permissible to delude a people?

   Pointless: a people cannot be deceived about the inner certainty of its faith 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 It is permissible whenever the deception preserves public order and obedience to the law
4. 4. What image does the Preface use for the relation between successive philosophical systems?

   Bud, blossom and fruit of a plant Bricks laid one upon another in a wall Rivers flowing together into one sea Soldiers in a line of battle
5. 5. What does reason as tester of laws conclude about property and community of goods?

   Taken simply, neither contradicts itself, so the test cannot decide Both are commanded by divine law and need no testing Private property contradicts itself, but community of goods does not Community of goods contradicts itself, but private property does not
6. 6. How does Hegel describe the work of spirit as “artificer”, before it has grasped the thought of itself?

   As the inspired speech of a prophet As free play, like children dancing at a village festival As instinctive working, like bees building their cells As calculated labour for profit
7. 7. Where, according to Hegel, does self-consciousness finally find its satisfaction?

   In the contemplation of nature Only in another self-consciousness In consuming the objects of desire In the bare certainty “I am I”
8. 8. What analogy does Hegel use against those who think anyone can philosophise without training?

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

   The mind of God The thing-in-itself, which cannot be known Nothing, unless we ourselves go behind it A world of fixed laws
10. 10. What is the fate of the “beautiful soul” that refuses to act?

    It becomes a world-historical hero It turns back into the Kantian moral consciousness of pure duty It wastes away in yearning, vanishing like a shapeless vapour It founds a new religious community of the faithful
11. 11. According to the Preface, everything depends on grasping the ultimate truth how?

    Not only as Substance but as Subject as well As pure Substance alone, as Spinoza had taught As the sum of sense impressions As an unknowable thing-in-itself beyond experience
12. 12. According to the opening of the section on active reason, where is reason truly realised?

    In the observation of nature by science In the pleasures of the individual In the life of a free nation, through its customs and laws In the isolated thinker who withdraws from society into himself
13. 13. What proposition does Hegel say observation finally arrives at?

    That the soul resides in the pineal gland That mind cannot be known at all That the existence of mind is a bone That the mind is the brain’s reflection
14. 14. 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 duty to maintain himself and his family and be useful to others A command laid on him by the positive law of the state A sin he must confess before the religious community and atone for
15. 15. Whom does Hegel contrast with the palmist, as someone who thought a person’s fate could be known only after the whole life?

    Solon Croesus Lavater Socrates