MH History of Ideas 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which Enlightenment thinker argued in 'The Social Contract' that legitimate political authority derives from the general will of the people?
- Voltaire
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Correct answer)
- David Hume
- Immanuel Kant
Correct answer: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rousseau's 'The Social Contract' (1762) introduced the concept of the 'general will' as the basis of legitimate sovereignty.
Question 2: The concept of 'paradigm shift' in scientific development was introduced by which 20th-century philosopher of science?
- Karl Popper
- Thomas Kuhn (Correct answer)
- Paul Feyerabend
- Imre Lakatos
Correct answer: Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn's 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' (1962) popularized the idea that science progresses through periodic paradigm shifts.
Question 3: Which ancient Greek concept, central to Aristotle's ethics, refers to human flourishing or living well?
- Logos
- Eudaimonia (Correct answer)
- Phronesis
- Arete
Correct answer: Eudaimonia
Eudaimonia, often translated as 'happiness' or 'flourishing,' is the highest good in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
Question 4: The idea that history moves through dialectical stages of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis is most closely associated with:
- Karl Marx
- G.W.F. Hegel (Correct answer)
- Friedrich Engels
- Auguste Comte
Correct answer: G.W.F. Hegel
Hegel developed the dialectical method as a logic of historical development, later adapted (and materialized) by Marx.
Question 5: Mary Wollstonecraft's 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' (1792) primarily challenged which prevailing assumption?
- That women should not own property
- That women were inherently irrational and suited only to domestic roles (Correct answer)
- That women should not practice religion
- That women were incapable of artistic creation
Correct answer: That women were inherently irrational and suited only to domestic roles
Wollstonecraft argued that women appeared irrational only because they were denied equal education, not due to natural inferiority.
Question 6: Which intellectual movement, emerging in 17th-century Europe, held that reason alone — not tradition or scripture — is the primary source of authority and legitimacy?
- Romanticism
- Scholasticism
- The Enlightenment (Correct answer)
- Humanism
Correct answer: The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment prioritized reason, individual rights, and empirical inquiry over religious tradition and monarchical authority.
Question 7: The philosophical school of Stoicism, founded by Zeno of Citium, held that the path to virtue involves:
- Maximizing sensory pleasure
- Living in accordance with reason and nature, and accepting what cannot be controlled (Correct answer)
- Withdrawing entirely from civic life
- Following divine commandments as revealed by oracles
Correct answer: Living in accordance with reason and nature, and accepting what cannot be controlled
Stoics believed virtue is the only true good and that one should focus on what is within one's control — one's own judgments and responses.
MH History of Ideas 2
Which Enlightenment thinker argued in 'The Social Contract' that legitimate political authority derives from the general will of the people?