Arts & Ideas

Philosophy Trivia

Socrates to Sartre, Confucius to Kant. These questions cover the great thinkers, the schools of thought, and the thought experiments that keep philosophy students up at night.

It's one of Kenna's harder categories. Every answer is typed, and each question ends with a short explanation of the idea behind it.

  • 262questions
  • 39easy
  • 70medium
  • 153hard

What's covered

  • Ancient Greek
  • Eastern philosophy
  • Ethics
  • Existentialism
  • Thought experiments
  • Latin phrases

Philosophy Trivia: sample questions

Answer in your head, then tap to check. In the game you type it.

  1. easy

    Complete the classic perception puzzle: 'If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it...' does it make a what?

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    Sound

    The puzzle turns on two rival definitions of sound: the physical vibrations in the air, versus the perceived sensation that requires a listener.

  2. easy

    What branch of philosophy is devoted to the study of valid reasoning and the structure of arguments?

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    Logic

    Aristotle systematized the field so thoroughly in antiquity that his collected treatises on the subject became known as the Organon, or 'instrument' of thought.

  3. medium

    What word describes selfless concern for the wellbeing of others — the opposite of selfishness?

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    Altruism

    The term altruism was coined (or at least popularized) around 1830 by French philosopher Auguste Comte, who built it from the Italian "altrui" (in turn from Latin "alteri"), meaning "other people."

  4. medium

    What is the name of the logical fallacy in which someone refutes a deliberately weakened or distorted version of an opponent's argument, rather than the argument itself?

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    Straw man

    The name evokes 'knocking down' a stuffed dummy that's easier to defeat than the real opposing argument it's dressed up to resemble.

  5. hard

    What philosophical term describes the view that moral truths are not universal, but hold true only within the context of a particular culture or individual?

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    Moral relativism

    Herodotus told of the Persian king Darius asking Greeks and a distant tribe to swap funeral customs, each side recoiling in horror, to illustrate that every people believes its own way is right.

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