Quiz: An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

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

1. Why, according to Hume, can no argument from experience prove that the future will resemble the past? Because experience is often mistaken and the senses deceive us Because all such arguments already assume that resemblance Because only mathematics can treat of future time with certainty Because the future is hidden even from the wisest observers
2. In Section XI, whom does Hume’s friend impersonate in his speech? Cicero, speaking before the Roman Senate Lucian addressing the Paphlagonians Epicurus, addressing the Athenians Socrates, defending himself at his trial
3. How does Hume define the liberty that everyone allows? Freedom from all causes, internal and external The right of subjects to resist an unjust magistrate by force A power of acting or not acting, according to the will Indifference of the will between equal motives
4. What does Hume claim about the long dispute over liberty and necessity? It lies wholly beyond human capacity, like the origin of worlds It has turned merely on words; all have always held both doctrines It can be settled only by revelation The defenders of liberty have won it decisively
5. According to Hume, what distinguishes belief from fiction? A demonstration of the fact believed An act of the will choosing to assent to it A more vivid, steady and forcible conception An extra idea added to the conception believed
6. Where did the false prophet Alexander begin his impostures, according to Lucian? Alexandria Rome Athens Paphlagonia
7. Which emperor, according to Tacitus, cured a blind man in Alexandria? Augustus Titus Vespasian Marcus Aurelius
8. Whose argument against the real presence does Hume take as the model for his argument about miracles? Bishop Berkeley’s Dr. Tillotson’s Lord Bacon’s Cardinal de Retz’s
9. To learn the sentiments and course of life of the Greeks and Romans, what does Hume advise? Compare them with travellers’ accounts of America Read only their poets Examine their laws of property Study the temper and actions of the French and English
10. What example shows that inference from experience does not depend on abstruse reasoning? A judge weighing testimony A child who avoids candles after being burned A merchant calculating profits A geometer proving Euclid’s theorems

0 of 10 answered