Week 1 Quiz

Two coworkers disagree about what makes a promise binding. Which approach to their question fits this course's account of philosophy?

Select one.

• Treat the question as opinion, since no answer is better supported than another
• Examine the question by giving reasons each coworker can test, not by authority alone
• Settle the question by asking the most senior coworker and accepting the decision
• Take a vote in the office and treat the majority view as the settled answer

A gallery visitor asks whether a stack of bricks displayed in a museum counts as a work of art. Which branch of philosophy is this question's home?

Select one.

• Metaphysics
• Epistemology
• Ethics
• Aesthetics

A juror wonders whether anyone can know that a witness's memory of a night is accurate. Which branch of philosophy is this question's home?

Select one.

• Epistemology
• Metaphysics
• Logic
• Political philosophy

Which of these are among the six main branches of philosophy this course names? Select all that apply.

Select every option that applies.

• Metaphysics
• Psychology
• Epistemology
• Theology
• Aesthetics
• Logic

Who wrote the Apology, the work in which Socrates gives his defense speech at his trial?

Select one.

• Socrates, writing down his own defense
• Benjamin Jowett, the work's translator
• Plato, with Socrates as its speaker
• Socrates and Plato, as joint authors

Q1 reads "the unexamined life is not worth living" (Plato, Apology, trans. Benjamin Jowett). Whose English words are on the page?

Select one.

• Socrates' own, spoken at his trial
• The translator's, Benjamin Jowett's
• Plato's own, as the dialogue's author
• The course's, as a paraphrase

Which sequence describes the Socratic method as this course teaches it?

Select one.

• State your view, gather support from your friends, then call a vote
• Accept an expert's definition, then apply it to each new case
• List many cases that fit a definition, then declare it proven
• Ask for a definition, test it with a counterexample, revise, retest

In the course's group-project example, D2 says "fairness means each person gets what they have earned." One teammate who is hard of hearing gets captions nobody earned, and most people would call providing them fair. What does this counterexample show about D2?

Select one.

• D2 is too narrow: it leaves out a case that is fair
• D2 is too broad: it lets in a case that is unfair
• D2 is proven wrong, so fairness means getting the same
• D2 survives, since one case is never enough to matter

A cafe owner defines a regular customer as "anyone who has visited twice." A tourist who stopped in twice on one trip and will never return is counted as a regular. What has the case shown about the definition?

Select one.

• It is too narrow, since it leaves out real regulars
• It proves a regular is anyone who visited once
• It is too broad, since it lets in a case it should not
• It shows nothing, because the tourist is only one person

Because philosophers disagree about many open questions, this course treats a view backed by no reasons as equally well supported as a view whose reasons have survived testing.

True or false.

• True
• False