Quiz: Critique of Pure Reason

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

1. 1. In the Refutation of Idealism, whose idealism does Kant call “dogmatic”?

   Hume’s Descartes’s Berkeley’s Leibniz’s
2. 2. Which discipline, according to the Architectonic, alone among the rational sciences can be learned?

   Moral philosophy Metaphysics of nature Mathematics Formal logic
3. 3. What does Kant call the first error that arises from using the idea of a supreme being constitutively?

   The amphiboly of reflection Perverted reason (perversa ratio) The paralogism of personality Lazy reason (ignava ratio)
4. 4. Which of these is not one of the three questions in which Kant says all the interests of reason combine?

   What may I hope? What can I know? What is man? What ought I to do?
5. 5. How does Kant’s verdict on the dynamical antinomies differ from his verdict on the mathematical ones?

   The dynamical antinomies are left unsolved, the mathematical ones solved In the dynamical antinomies the thesis is true; in the mathematical ones the antithesis is true There is no difference; all four are declared false on both sides In the dynamical antinomies both sides may be true; in the mathematical ones both are false
6. 6. What does Kant conclude when a dogmatist offers ten proofs of a proposition of pure reason?

   That the proposition must be analytic That the proposition is at least probable That one of them is sure to be apodeictic That he really has none
7. 7. To whom does Kant dedicate the Critique of Pure Reason?

   King Frederick II of Prussia Baron von Zedlitz Moses Mendelssohn, his Berlin correspondent Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, his publisher
8. 8. Without the critique, in what condition does Kant say reason finds itself?

   In the state of nature, settling its claims through war In a monarchy ruled by the understanding In a permanent truce, enforced by the sceptics who doubt every claim In exile beyond the bounds of experience
9. 9. How does Kant classify the proposition 7 + 5 = 12?

   Analytic a priori Synthetic a posteriori Synthetic a priori Analytic a posteriori
10. 10. How does Kant answer Mendelssohn's proof that a simple soul cannot cease to exist?

    Even a simple being has an intensive degree of reality that can fade away to nothing Immortality can be proved only from the existence of God The soul is composite and so can be dissolved into its parts There must be a moment between being and not-being, in which the simple soul could suddenly vanish
11. 11. According to Kant, what follows from transcendental idealism about matter?

    Matter can be known only as the inferred cause of our perceptions Matter, as appearance, is immediately perceived and needs no inference to be known as real Matter is a thing in itself existing independently of our sensibility Matter does not exist at all
12. 12. What does the judgment “the body is heavy” assert, as opposed to “If I support a body, I feel an impression of weight”?

    That the representations are combined in the object That heaviness is a merely subjective feeling in the observer That weight is a necessary property of all bodies whatever That the speaker has often felt weight
13. 13. Whose “primary hypothesis” does Kant take as the model for supposing that objects must conform to our knowledge?

    Isaac Newton Bacon Copernicus Galileo Galilei
14. 14. According to the Amphiboly, what did Leibniz do to appearances, and Locke to the concepts of the understanding?

    Both treated space and time as things in themselves Leibniz sensualised appearances, while Locke intellectualised the concepts Leibniz intellectualised appearances; Locke sensualised the concepts Both reduced everything to sensation
15. 15. Which argument of rational psychology does Kant call its “Achilles”?

    That the outer world is doubtful because it is only inferred That the soul is a person because it is conscious of its identity That the soul is simple, since a thought cannot be divided among many substances That the soul is a substance because it is always the subject and never a predicate
16. 16. Complete Kant’s formula: “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are …”

    blind infinite dead false
17. 17. Whom does Kant name as representatives of the dogmatic and the sceptical scientific methods?

    Wolff and Hume Leibniz and Locke Descartes and Berkeley Plato and Epicurus
18. 18. Kant says he found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for what?

    Faith Experience Mathematics Scepticism
19. 19. What, according to Kant, is the most the physico-theological proof can establish by itself?

    That the world had a beginning in time An absolutely necessary and all-perfect being An architect of the world working with given material, not a creator The immortality of the soul
20. 20. What fallacy does Kant find in the argument behind all the antinomies?

    It argues in a circle by assuming that God exists as the first cause It infers a universal law from too few observed cases of succession It confuses analytic with synthetic judgements a priori throughout It takes “the conditioned” as a thing in itself in the major premise, an appearance in the minor
21. 21. What image does Kant use for the point on which the ideas of reason direct the understanding?

    A lighthouse guiding ships into harbour The vanishing point of a painter’s perspective A virtual focus, like the apparent source of objects seen in a mirror The pole star by which sailors steer
22. 22. What does Kant say Hume called the subjective necessity on which he based the principle of causality?

    Innate idea Revelation Instinct Custom
23. 23. Why does Kant say the cosmological idea, not experience, is “too large or too small”?

    Because the world really is finite, so the infinite idea is too large Because ideas are given before experience and so measure it Because possible experience is the standard by which an idea must be judged Because experience is always mistaken about the size of the world
24. 24. How does Kant respond to those who ridicule Plato's Republic as a visionary perfection?

    He agrees that it is a dream of an idle thinker with no use for legislators He says it should be judged only by the experience of actual states He defends its ideal of a constitution of the greatest freedom as a necessary idea, even if it may never be realised He argues that Plato's state already existed in ancient Sparta
25. 25. According to Kant, what gives the theses of the antinomies their “practical interest”?

    They were the views held by Epicurus and the ancient atomists They support morals and religion: a beginning of the world, a simple soul, freedom and a primordial being They promise the widest extension of natural science through experience They are easier to prove by mathematics than the antitheses
26. 26. Why, according to the Canon, must reason postulate God and a future life?

    Speculative reason has proved them by the cosmological argument They are needed to explain the order of nature scientifically Only they can secure happiness in exact proportion to worthiness to be happy Without them the categories would have no application
27. 27. How does Kant distinguish his “sceptical method” from scepticism?

    The method provokes a conflict of assertions in order to find the point of misunderstanding, and aims at certainty The method is used mainly in experimental philosophy and morals The method doubts all knowledge, including mathematics The method decides each dispute in favour of the side that attacks first
28. 28. What follows, according to the Anticipations of Perception, from every reality having a degree?

    All matter is made of indivisible atoms separated by empty space Heat is a kind of motion Experience can never prove the existence of empty space Bodies of equal volume must contain equal quantities of matter and weight
29. 29. From whom does Kant take the name “categories” for the pure concepts of the understanding, while criticising his list as unsystematic?

    Aristotle Plato Gottfried Leibniz Christian Wolff
30. 30. According to Kant, what did Locke's and Hume's empirical derivations of the pure concepts lead to?

    Dogmatism in Hume's case and scepticism in Locke's Atheism in both cases Enthusiasm in Locke's case and scepticism in Hume's Materialism in Locke's case and idealism in Hume's
31. 31. Which two pure forms of sensible intuition does the Transcendental Aesthetic identify?

    Substance and causality Space and time Quantity and quality Matter and motion
32. 32. What does Kant call “the battle-field of these endless controversies”?

    Metaphysics Natural science Mathematics Theology
33. 33. Which three objects does Kant assign to rational psychology, cosmology and theology?

    The thinking subject, the world, and the being of all beings Substance, cause and community, the categories of relation Space, time and causality, the forms of all experience Sensation, intuition and concept, the stages of cognition
34. 34. What does Kant call the usual test of whether someone’s assertion is mere persuasion or firm belief?

    Communicating it to a tribunal of philosophers Testing it against the categories Betting Swearing an oath
35. 35. How does Kant picture the territory of pure understanding at the start of the chapter on phenomena and noumena?

    As a map of a continent whose interior is unexplored As an island, the land of truth, in a stormy ocean of illusion As a house built on the firm foundation of experience and its laws As a fortress besieged on every side by the sceptics and their doubts
36. 36. When we perceive purposive unity in nature, what does Kant say must be a matter of indifference to us?

    Whether we discovered it by observation or by experiment Whether we say God has willed it or that nature has wisely arranged it Whether the unity is mechanical or chemical Whether it belongs to organic or inorganic nature
37. 37. How does Kant distinguish a schema from an image?

    An image of a thing in itself A faint copy of an image, retained in memory after the perception fades A general word or sign that stands for a whole group of similar images A procedure for producing images in accordance with a concept
38. 38. From which field does Kant borrow the term “deduction”?

    Theology, where it means derivation from revelation Geometry, where it means a chain of proof from axioms Law, where it means proof of a right or legal claim Chemistry, where it means extraction of a pure substance
39. 39. In explaining order and purposiveness in nature, what does Kant prefer to an appeal to a divine Author?

    Even the wildest hypotheses, if only they are physical The ontological proof of a necessary being Suspending all explanation until reason has been critiqued An appeal to the common sense of mankind
40. 40. In the Second Analogy, what does Kant contrast with perceiving a ship moving downstream?

    Weighing the smoke from burnt wood Watching a stove heat a room, cause and effect being simultaneous Looking first at the moon and then at the earth, and back again Surveying a house, whose parts can be perceived in any order
41. 41. How does Kant deal with causes that are simultaneous with their effects, such as a stove heating a room?

    What counts is the order of time, not the lapse of time He denies that such causes are true causes, calling them mere coexistences He treats them as cases of the Third Analogy, of mutual interaction only He says the effect, though unnoticed, always slightly precedes its cause
42. 42. According to Kant, which science alone has definitions in the strict sense?

    Natural history Mathematics Metaphysics, as Wolff taught it Formal logic
43. 43. What does Kant's example of rising from a chair illustrate in the third antinomy?

    An infinite series of past states of the world leading up to the present moment The beginning of the world in time, before which there was only empty time The impossibility of any free action in a world governed by natural laws An absolutely first beginning in causality, though not in time
44. 44. What is the point of Kant’s example of the hundred thalers?

    The concept of God is richer than the concept of money Real money is worth less than its concept, because coins are clipped and debased in circulation Only things in themselves can really exist Existence adds nothing to the concept of a thing, so it cannot be deduced from it
45. 45. What answer does the philosopher in Kant’s anecdote give to the question of how much smoke weighs?

    Smoke has no weight, since it rises Subtract the weight of the ashes from the weight of the wood burnt Weigh the air of the closed room both before and after the wood is burnt It cannot be known without a careful chemical experiment on the gases
46. 46. What does Kant's cinnabar example show?

    Natural kinds are fixed by God Weight cannot be perceived directly, only inferred from its effects Colours are secondary qualities that exist only in the perceiving mind Association presupposes that appearances themselves follow rules
47. 47. Which three principles does Kant say reason uses to prepare the field for the understanding?

    Quantity, quality and relation Homogeneity, specification and continuity Substance, causality and community Analysis, synthesis and deduction
48. 48. In the first-edition Deduction, where does Kant say the order and regularity we call nature come from?

    They are implanted by God in a pre-established harmony We ourselves introduce them into appearances They are learned by induction from repeated cases They are copied from things in themselves
49. 49. How does transcendental illusion differ from logical illusion, according to Kant?

    It arises only from the senses, not from reason It disappears as soon as attention is paid to the logical rule It can be avoided by careful mathematical reasoning It persists even after it has been detected and exposed
50. 50. What does Kant’s example of the malicious lie show?

    That a lie is never caused by education, company or temperament That the lie, though traced to causes, is still imputed to the liar’s reason That lying is permitted when it causes no confusion in society That blame is unjust once the causes of an act are fully known