Past Test Questions: Aesthetics & the Meaning of Life

Answers at end. Because these questions draw on different textbooks and topics covered in different semesters, not all of them apply to any particular course in a semester.

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 objective--to unite people by highlighting how their feelings are in harmony with the "conceptual 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, "commodified" 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 "art" is an open concept, we mean that things are identified as art objects based on their "family resemblances" with other works identified as art.

29.     According to Wittgenstein's "family resemblances" account, all objects of art share at least one essential feature that justifies our calling such objects works of art--namely, its moral ("family values") character.

30.     Followers of Wittgenstein argue that in saying that "art" 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 objective--to unite people by highlighting how their feelings are in harmony with the structure (or "conceptual 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 "leap 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 "leap 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 objects--for example, in pictures of a particular woman--Aristotle 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 "the 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 "surplus repression" whose only purpose is to guarantee the privileged position of the elite classes. The "negative 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, "existence 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 "open 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 "form 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 "aesthetic" 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 "art" 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 ("classical") 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 "aesthetic" 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 "disinterested 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 "leap 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 "ethical" 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