Past Test Questions: Aesthetics & the Meaning of Life
Answers at end.
True/False (True=A; False=B)
1.
Because
aesthetics is limited to the study of the relationship of art and reality, it
does not consider epistemological questions about how we know whether an object
of art is beautiful.
2.
Because aesthetics
refers to the study of what is sensed or felt, it addresses questions of art
but not beauty.
3.
Plato complains
that, by focusing on mere appearances, art distracts us from the truth and
appeals to socially destructive emotions.
4.
Plato suggests
that, insofar as art merely imitates what is real and draws our attention away
from what is real, it fails to provide a means for knowing the truth.
5.
Plato argues
that, because art emphasizes the morally perfect acts of the gods, art is
socially useful for inspiring human beings to imitate those acts.
6.
Because of its
purgative or cathartic ability, art (for Aristotle) causes human beings to
engage either in violent, antisocial behavior or neurotic attempts to deny
reality.
7.
According to
Aristotle, art is an expression of universal ideals, not an imitation of
particular things or events.
8.
According to
Aristotle, art has the effect of catharsis, the purging or cleansing us
of erotic and aggressive passions.
9.
[According to
Freud, through art we attempt to create alternatives to reality in which we
channel our irrational and anti-social drives (e.g., sexuality, aggression) in
socially acceptable ways.]
10.
[Freud claims
that irrational, antisocial drives (e.g., sexuality and aggression) can be
sublimated in socially acceptable forms of creativity like science, art, religion,
philosophy, or morality.]
11.
According to
Romanticism, art captures the creative feeling of reality itself by evoking or
expressing emotions.
12.
In Romanticism
art represents or imitates daily reality and does not express emotion or
reveal deeper realities.
13.
The art-as-form
movement and conceptual art share one fundamental objectiveCto unite people by highlighting how their feelings are
in harmony with the Aconceptual structure@ of the
mind.
14.
[Neo-Platonism,
classicism, and Romanticism differ from the theory of "art as form"
by depicting beauty as that which is intrinsically valuable (i.e., able to make
all people share the same feelings).]
15.
[According to
Marx, capitalism alienates artists from their work by treating artistic
productions not as expressions of natural creativity but as things that can be
bought and sold (i.e., commodities).]
16.
[According to
Marx, the art of Neo-Platonism, Classicism, and Romanticism express the
ideology of the ruling class.]
17.
[Marx argues that
even though art, like religion, morality, and philosophy, ordinarily embodies
the socio-economic values of the ruling class, great art has the ability to
challenge and transcend a culture=s
ideology.]
18.
[Marcuse describes surplus repression as repression
in a society that is beyond what is needed to maintain order and that exists
only to protect the power and privilege of the establishment (i.e., those in power).]
19.
[In contrast to
Freud, Marcuse argues that repression of all
so-called anti-social drives is necessary for society.]
20.
[According to Marcuse, all great art is revolutionary and subversive
because it highlights the discrepancy between our repressed, Acommodified@ lives and the utopian lives to which we aspire.]
21.
[According to Marcuse, because classical art reminds us of the difference
between the utopian world it expresses and our dreary,
consumeristic world, art is revolutionary and
subversive.]
22.
[Marcuse argues that art is revolutionary and subversive
because by appealing to fantasy it counteracts social repression through
highlighting differences between the commodity world and utopian possibilities.]
23.
[For
existentialists, art makes our lives meaningful by showing how the world is
open to human creativity.]
24.
[In
existentialist aesthetics, art reveals how things are meaningful only in terms
of how we choose to perceive them.]
25.
[For the
existentialist, to say that the world is a work of art means that it is a work
in progress that requires our continual reevaluation and creative reassessment
to determine what it is and what it means.]
26.
[For existentialists,
a work of art expresses the fundamental condition of human existence by
highlighting how the world in which we live can be copied or imitated but not
ultimately changed or affected.]
27.
[Existentialists
point out that, because art objects are already completed products, those
objects cannot make us recognize that we must decide for ourselves the meaning
of existence.]
28.
[Wittgensteinians claim that by saying that Aart@ is an open concept, we mean that things are
identified as art objects based on their Afamily
resemblances@ with other works identified as art.]
29.
[According to
Wittgenstein=s Afamily resemblances@
account, all objects of art share at least one essential feature that justifies
our calling such objects works of artCnamely,
its moral (Afamily values@)
character.]
30.
[Followers of
Wittgenstein argue that in saying that Aart@ is an open concept, we mean that it is a
commodity.]
31.
Institutional
theorists of art (e.g., George Dickie) claim that something is a work of art if the art
community thinks it shares enough characteristics with other works of art to be
called art.
32.
Institutional or consensus theorists of art (e.g., George Dickie) claim that something is a work of art if it
captures the harmony between the structure of real things and the structure or activities of the mind.
33.
Music or dance
cannot be abstract or conceptual because abstract art attempts to arouse our
distinctly aesthetic sensibilities.
34.
The art-for-art=s-sake movement and conceptual art share one
fundamental objectiveCto unite people by highlighting how their feelings are
in harmony with the structure (or Aconceptual
structure@) of the mind.
35.
In the Christian
view of medieval philosophers such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, because
human beings are essentially sinful, they cannot act rationally or even aspire
to know God.
36.
Hegel and Marx
agree that each individual=s life has purpose to the extent that it contributes
to the ongoing advance of human history.
37.
As the goal of
history, the communist revolution will occur (according to Marx) when all
members of society recognize how people have always been free from economic
influences.
38.
Nihilism is the
view that nothing has value or purpose in life except for the heroic struggle
against boredom.
39.
According to
Schopenhauer, the nihilist belief that life is ultimately meaningless is based
on the assumption that progress in human history cannot be achieved as long as
societies are divided into classes.
40.
According to
Kierkegaard, human existence should not be described in terms of objective
facts but in terms of subjective, non-universalizable
truths.
41.
According to
Kierkegaard, angst is the anguish or anxiety implicit in the authentic
experience of the ambiguity of human existence.
42.
For Kierkegaard,
since no convincing arguments can be given to justify existence itself, the
only proper (i.e., authentic) response is unconditioned faith in God=s promise of salvation.
43.
The aesthetic
life style (for Kierkegaard) provides no guide for making decisions because
those who pursue the aesthetic life acknowledge that human existence is
ambiguous.
44.
Kierkegaard=s Aleap of faith@ is
based on the assumption that religious commitment is justified only if it is
consistent with our other (e.g., moral, social) beliefs.
45.
Abraham=s Aleap of faith@ was,
for Kierkegaard, an ethical but not a religious decision because it was based
on Abraham=s knowledge of what was morally right.
46.
In defining the
meaning of life in terms of subjectivity, Kierkegaard claims that the truth of
statements (even about things about which we are only mildly curious) is based
on how we feel about them.
47.
According to
Kierkegaard, our existence is meaningful only to the extent that we can give an
objective, rational justification for believing in God=s promise of salvation.
48.
In Sartre=s existentialism, life is meaningless because there is
no God.
Multiple Choice
49.
In saying that
art is an imitation of that which is real, Plato attacks art on the basis of
its failure to direct us to the truth. Art (he says) draws us away from truth
insofar as its purpose is to entertain us by showing or telling us:
(a) how the appeal to the emotions results in antisocial and personally
destructive behavior.
(b) what the realm of the Forms is really like,
understood in primarily mathematical terms.
(c) how the morally good life is based on
correct ontological and epistemological principles.
(d) deceptions, things that are simply fictions
(even when they describe the sensible world).
50.
Plato argues that
art threatens both personal integrity and social stability by emphasizing:
(a) the behavior of the gods rather than events in the lives of ordinary
people.
(b) the logos or meaning of artistic expressions
(e.g., in poetry, drama, dance, or music) rather than the actual performance
itself.
(c) differences between socially beneficial emotions
and socially destructive emotions.
(d) emotional appeals rather than reason.
51.
Plato thinks that
art should be banned from a well-ordered republic because it undermines one's
personal integrity and threatens the stability of society by:
(a) focusing on what is not true, failing to explain reality, and appealing to
our emotions rather than reason.
(b) comparing ways of life and forms of government in
terms of ideal Forms rather than through experience.
(c) providing a rationale for the world that points
beyond our experience to a realm of perfect emotions.
(d) making art more important than reason, spirit, or
passion, and by making artists more important than rulers, enforcers, or
workers.
52.
Whereas Plato
views art as imitating sensible objectsCfor
example, in pictures of a particular womanCAristotle
says that art should depict:
(a)
the ways in which our disruptive passions must be
unleashed to bring about social and political revolution.
(b)
the universal idealizations of things (e.g., a classic
feminine shape, or the embodiment of nobility itself).
(c)
the imperfections of objects and the complexity of
events in our ordinary, daily experiences.
(d)
how the structure of the human mind mirrors the
arrangement of ideas in the realm of the Forms.
53.
In contrast to
Plato, Aristotle suggests that great art focuses our attention on universal
truths and values, not on the individual events or objects that are the sensual
or immediate art objects themselves. In this sense, Aristotle argues, art can
have a socially desirable effect, insofar as:
(a) art, like philosophy, liberates unconscious memories of past events
or objects.
(b) great art makes the viewer or listener feel
the immediacy of sensuality, not ideal forms.
(c) art appeals to the highest part of the soul
in a way even better than does people.
(d) art indicates what human beings can aspire
to and try to imitate.
54.
In response to
Plato, Aristotle claims that art does not disrupt the harmony of the soul by
letting the passions overrule reason. Rather, Aristotle argues, art functions
in a socially beneficial way by:
(a) providing opportunities for a controlled release of erotic and aggressive
passions.
(b) bringing people together through their shared
feelings of unity as all children of God.
(c) dissolving all feelings and passions and replacing
them with philosophic reasoning.
(d) alienating human beings from their passions, and
thus alienating human beings from one another.
55.
According to
Aristotle, art does not imitate particular things; rather it identifies
universal ideals and values. That means that a work of art is beautiful to the
extent that it:
(a)
avoids causing us to experience any emotions like anger,
sorrow, or joy.
(b)
reveals perfect embodiments of form (e.g., statues) or the
flaws of such perfections (as in tragic heroes).
(c)
focuses attention on ordinary things (e.g., a common worker)
rather than on heroic events or divine acts.
(d)
makes us want to do away with the sensible distractions of
art in favor of philosophical contemplation.
56.
[Both Plato and
Freud characterize art in similar ways insofar as they agree that art:
(a)
is an acceptable expression of repressed instincts and
drives.
(b)
dissolves the distinction between ontological,
epistemological, and moral ways of thinking.
(c)
promotes violence and other anti-social forms of
behavior.
(d) prevents people from recognizing or dealing with reality
for what it is.]
57.
According to
Romanticism, art expresses the ultimate truth of reality in terms of
imagination rather than reason, feeling and energy rather than order and
proportion. Such expression permits the artist to point beyond the ordinary
world to show the truth of existence, because:
(a) the mundane, daily world is what is truly real, and the role of the
artist is to "spruce it up."
(b) the truth about existence is embodied in
creativity, not in the repetition of the ordinary.
(c) truth in art is subjective: one person might
equate art with feeling, another with reason.
(d) the order of daily existence counteracts,
balances, and harmonizes the irrationality of art.
58.
According to
Tolstoy, art cannot be great unless it evokes a sense of religious
understanding and harmony. In other words, in order for a work of art to be
great, it must inspire people to feel sincerely for the plight of one another
and it must have appeal for and be intelligible to:
(a) people with aesthetic sensibilities or training in the arts.
(b) people who share the values of the artist.
(c) people associated with organized religions.
(d) people from all backgrounds and walks of
life.
59.
[For Marx, even
though art is a natural and creative human activity, it generally expresses:
(a) the supernatural power of divine activity.
(b) the anti-establishment values of a counter-culture.
(c) the sublime, a reality deeper than the ordinary.
(d) the values and ideology of a culture=s ruling class.]
60.
[For Marx, the
creative and artistic productions of human labor define human beings as what
they are. Artistic expression and aesthetic enjoyment are thus essential human
characteristics. But (Marx argues) in capitalist societies, art is not
considered as an inalienable expression of the artist=s self, because in capitalist societies art is:
(a) the expression of
essential human characteristics (e.g., creativity, sociability) epitomized by
the ruling class.
(b) alienated from the artist=s labor and transformed into a commodity to be bought
and sold.
(c) the productive and
creative result of the conflict between social classes.
(d) merely a means for
tricking the laboring masses into thinking that their repressed condition is
itself a result of their sexual and aggressive drives.]
61.
[Marcuse argues that art is revolutionary and subversive
because it appeals to fantasy and employs Athe
power of the negative@ to counteract social repression. It does this by
highlighting differences between:
(a) the dreary reality of a world of commodities and the
possibilities opened up by utopian views.
(b) what the general public thinks is art and what critics,
artists, and others in the art community think is art.
(c) the repressive character of what is called art and the
freeing character of what is called beauty.
(d) the bourgeoisie (owners of the means of production) and the
proletariat (the working class).]
62.
[Marcuse argues that in capitalist societies
repression of anti-social drives is not directed to fulfilling only basic human
needs; rather there is a Asurplus repression@ whose
only purpose is to guarantee the privileged position of the elite classes. The Anegative power@ of art,
he says, lies in its ability to tap into this surplus repression by:
(a) allowing us to fantasize and thus be liberated from a
capitalist or commodity mentality.
(b) eliminating even the necessary repression required for
social existence.
(c) extending the opportunity for artistic expression to all
workers, regardless of talent.
(d) showing how the negation of the commodity world entails the
rejection of classical art.]
63.
[Sartre claims
that, as far as human beings alone are concerned, Aexistence precedes essence@; that is, what we are is a product of our own choices
or decisions. In his view, a work of art is that which expresses or reveals the
fundamental condition of human existence by highlighting how the world in which
we live is:
(a) meaningful only in terms of that which transcends human
existence (e.g., an afterlife).
(b) something that art can
copy or imitate but cannot ultimately change or affect.
(c) a creation of God in which everything (including us) has a
certain nature, place, or function.
(d) a work in progress, a
place whose meaning depends on our intentional, creative decisions.]
64.
To say that art
has "intrinsic" value and gives meaning to nature and life means that
art:
(a) needs no other justification than itself, and that even nature and
life depend on art.
(b) is valuable insofar as it expresses the
feelings of artists who describe nature and life.
(c) is valuable insofar as it imitates or
reproduces the way that nature, life, or the world is.
(d) undermines the possibility that there is any
ultimate meaning in nature and life.
65.
Neither abstract
art nor conceptual art imitate reality or express emotions; but they
are different from one another to the extent that abstract art :
(a) tries to abstract universal meanings
from what it depicts, whereas conceptual art draws attention to the social and
political concepts expressed in the art.
(b) is intended to
provoke certain feelings, whereas conceptual art is not intended to provoke any
feelings or even thoughts (it just is).
(c) draws
attention to surfaces, sounds, colors, and angles themselves, but conceptual
art raises questions about whether something is even art at all.
(d) does not
share any characteristics or have any "family resemblances" with
other notions of art, but conceptual art does.
66. [In characterizing the concept of art as an Aopen concept,@ Wittgensteinians claim that what makes something an object
of art depends less on the thing itself than on how the thing functions in a Aform of life.@ In
other words, for Wittgensteinians art is defined as:
(a) something that any
individual acting on his or her own wants to call art.
(b) a designation by a group
of language users, not a discovery of some nature or essence.
(c) a specific kind of thing
having a particular Aaesthetic@ nature
or essence.
(d) a representation of the
world or an expression of the artist=s
feelings.]
67. [Both existentialist and Wittgensteinian
aesthetics assume that Aart@ is a concept that is open to expansion and creative
application. But that does not mean that these two views agree that just any
object should be considered art because, for the existentialist, art has at
least one necessary function--namely:
(a) it produces the greatest
amount of happiness for the greatest number of people in society.
(b) it prompts us to consider
what makes events or things in our ordinary lives have meaning.
(c) it puts individuals in
touch with the divine, imaginative power found in all life and nature.
(d) it consolidates social
values and encourages us to protect those traditional (Aclassical@)
values.]
68.
[Advocates of an institutional
or consensus theory of art (e.g., George Dickie)
use Wittgenstein's concept of a "form of life" to argue that
something is considered a work of art if:
(a) as the Romantics suggest, it puts us in touch with what is eternally real
and creative.
(b) the art community thinks it shares enough
"family resemblances" with other works of art to be called art.
(c) it captures the harmony between the structure of
real things and the structure or activities of the mind.
(d) it is valuable intrinsically as an expression of
creative energy itself: art for art's sake.]
69.
Advocates of an institutional
or consensus theory of art (e.g., George Dickie)
argue that something is considered a work of art if it is identified as art:
(a) by any individual.
(b) because it is creative.
(c) by the art community.
(d) because it expresses
emotion.
70.
Defenders of
abstract art argue that art that represents things or that expresses or evokes
emotions makes us think of things other than the work itself; but abstract art
does exactly what art is supposed to do, namely:
(a) allow us to become so disinterested in art that we question
our original interests and thus are refreshed.
(b) force us to appreciate works of art that have preceded them
and that often have been taken for granted.
(c) make us think of things that transcend our ordinary
experiences and unite us to eternal truths.
(d) develop our Aaesthetic@
sensibilities, our awareness of colors, sounds, shapes, etc. in their own
right.
71.
Critics of works
of conceptual art (e.g., Duchamp=s Urinal) deny that it is art at all. But defenders of
conceptual art reply that such criticisms demonstrate exactly how such works
are, in fact, works of art, in that those works:
(a) elicit from us powerful
feelings that are channeled into socially productive activities.
(b) represent idealizations
of things in our ordinary experience that we otherwise would overlook.
(c) make us question what art
is and prompt us (as art has always done) to ask such fundamental questions.
(d) cause us to experience
beauty as a Adisinterested pleasure.@
72.
Theists argue
that life has meaning only to the extent that there is something beyond it that
gives it purpose. Critics reply, however, that such a view does not provide a
rationale for our lives; rather, it explains:
(a) why God creates us to fulfill his purposes.
(b) how existence is ultimately pointless.
(c) how human history reveals increasing freedom.
(d) why there is so much suffering in the world.
73.
A theistic
account of the meaning of life differs from accounts provided by Hegel, Marx,
and Sartre in that, for the theist, life is meaningful in terms of:
(a) a belief in God as the
goal of humanity, as opposed to the belief that humanity is the fulfillment or
goal of God.
(b) what is beyond human
existence rather than in terms of the history of the human race or personal
experience.
(c) the advancement of human
freedom in this life rather than the attainment of a classless existence in the
next life.
(d) a view of heaven in which
the meaningless of human existence is replaced with the authenticity of
nihilism.
74.
According to
Marx, if individuals are allowed to own private property, they will not share
common goals or strive to achieve a dependable peace. As long as there is the
potential for dividing people from one another in terms of what they own, they
will never identify themselves with one another and will always be engaged in
class conflict. This diagnosis, like his solution (communal ownership of
property), assumes that:
(a) each person should give according to his/her abilities and take according
to his/her needs.
(b) everyone is defined by what he/she produces and
what he/she has control over.
(c) liberalism, socialism, and communalism (or
communism) are basically the same thing.
(d) class conflict and self-interest are innate,
natural characteristics of human beings.
75.
[Which of the
following IS NOT a feature that Marx describes as giving meaning to a
capitalistic lifestyle?
(a) The pursuit of pleasure, power, wealth, or success prevents us from
achieving human fulfillment.
(b) The unequal distribution of wealth and power is natural and desirable as a
means to motivate people.
(c) Competition, not cooperation, is the key to personal and social success.
(d) Having material possessions and not having to work are what make us happy.]
76.
For Kierkegaard,
the truth about the possibility that there is a God who makes our existence
meaningful must be subjective rather than objective. In other words, the questioning
of whether there is a God is itself meaningful only in terms of the answer one
discovers. That fact recognizes:
(a)
how belief in the existence of God is something purely
personal and private, regardless of whether there is any justification at all
in believing that there is a God.
(b)
how the distinction between subjective and objective
truth is a function of whether one believes in the existence of God or not.
(c)
how our interest in believing in the existence of God
is much more than intellectual curiosity about some fact that is independent of
our search for an answer.
(d)
how the questioning of whether there is a God can come
to an end once someone acknowledges that there is no true answer to the
question.
77.
According to
Kierkegaard, the attempt to understand God rationally is contrary to the Aleap of faith@
required in a religious commitment, because:
(a)
if knowledge of God could be reasoned to, there would be
no need for passionate faith.
(b)
no other argument for God=s
existence is as rational as the leap of faith argument.
(c)
a religious commitment has to be based on a belief that
is rationally intelligible; otherwise, no one would understand what it means to
believe.
(d)
after all, most of us believe because our parents or
society tell us what to believe.
78.
According to
Kierkegaard, the Aethical@ person
is someone who acts based on morally defensible principles. The life of such a
person, he maintains, is inauthentic because:
(a)
one is ethical not by acting on objective universal
principles but by doing what society says.
(b)
ethical principles are objective and universal, but not
crucial in the individual=s decisions.
(c)
moral principles summarize Christian (i.e., middle class,
bourgeois) values.
(d)
moral principles are true precisely because they are
objective and rational.
79.
According to
Kierkegaard, religious faith requires a leap beyond what is socially acceptable
and rationally justifiable because:
(a)
most religious
practices are simply excuses for socializing with people who could care less
about giving a rational justification for their actions
(b)
unless a person believes in what his or her society and
religious upbringing says is right, he or she is unable to understand how life
can be meaningful.
(c)
even if someone makes a leap of faith and believes that
God will save him or her, that in no way diminishes the meaninglessness of
human existence.
(d)
socially acceptable action requires no faith at all, and
rationally justifiable action applies only to the universal (whereas faith in
salvation is particular).
80.
For Kierkegaard
the anxiety associated with the ambiguity of human existence undermines our
belief that life is meaningful in virtue of scientific, rational, and ethical
truths. Which of the following beliefs WOULD NOT be characteristic of
authentic human existence?
(a)
What we believe
to be true has significance for us only to the extent that it is true for us as
existing individuals.
(b)
Human
significance is not defined in terms of fulfilling a universal essence or nature.
(c)
Religious
commitment guarantees heavenly salvation.
(d)
The gulf between
the finite and the infinite can be bridged only by a leap of faith.
81.
Kierkegaard notes
that the truth about human existence is not knowable as are other facts about
the world, because those other things are facts concerning which we do not
really care. What makes our beliefs true, though, is not only that we care
about them but also that:
(a)
they are based on an objective, impersonal relation
between the belief and the world.
(b)
even after adopting those beliefs we continue to experience
anxiety and doubt about them.
(c)
after adopting the belief we are comforted in the knowledge
that God=s grace has saved us.
(d)
faith in God allows us to believe anything we want and that
will make it true.
82.
In contrast to
those who argue that life=s meaning is to be found in a life beyond this one,
Kierkegaard and Sartre claim that the meaning of life consists in:
(a) the reluctant acceptance
of our fate as it is determined by God, nature, or random chance.
(b) an existential,
ultimately indefensible, affirmation that the world will have meaning through
our choices.
(c) the acknowledgment of
nihilism as the only appropriate response to the meaningless of existence.
(d) a constant (but
ultimately futile) effort to avoid suicide or, as in Abraham=s case, madness.
Answers: 1.
B 2.
F 3.
A 4.
A 5.
B 6.
B 7.
A 8.
A 9.
[A] 10.
[A] 11.
A 12.
B 13.
B 14.
[B] 15.
[A] 16.
[A] 17.
[A] 18.
[A] 19.
[B] 20.
[A] |
21.
[A] 22.
[A] 23.
[A] 24.
[A] 25.
[A] 26.
[B] 27.
[B] 28.
[B] 29.
[B] 30.
[B] 31.
A 32.
B 33.
B 34.
B 35.
B 36.
A 37.
B 38.
B 39.
B 40.
A |
41.
A 42.
A 43.
B 44.
B 45.
B 46.
B 47.
B 48.
B 49.
D 50.
D 51.
A 52.
B 53.
D 54.
A 55.
B 56.
[D] 57.
B 58.
D 59.
[D] 60.
[B] |
61.
[A] 62.
[A] 63.
[D] 64.
A 65.
C 66.
[B] 67.
[B] 68.
[B] 69.
C 70.
D 71.
C 72.
A 73.
B 74.
B 75.
[A] 76.
C 77.
A 78.
B 79.
D 80.
C 81.
B 82. B |
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