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IB Philosophy HL practice questions

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Question 1Core theme: Being human

In the core theme 'Being human', the debate over whether humans possess a fixed essence most directly contrasts essentialism with which of the following?

  1. Logical positivism
  2. Determinism
  3. Utilitarianism
  4. Existentialism Correct answer.

Explanation

Essentialism holds that humans share a defining nature that precedes their choices, while existentialism (notably Sartre) inverts this, arguing that existence precedes essence and that humans construct themselves through action. This is the central contrast in the Being human theme concerning whether human nature is given or made.

Question 2Core theme: Being human

Sartre's slogan that 'existence precedes essence' is best interpreted as claiming that:

  1. Human nature is fixed by biology prior to any decision
  2. Humans first exist and only then define themselves through choices Correct answer.
  3. Essence and existence are strictly identical in all beings
  4. Human essence is implanted by a divine creator before birth

Explanation

For Sartre, humans are not manufactured to a prior blueprint; they are thrown into existence and become what they are through free projects. This makes human nature a product of living rather than a precondition of it, which grounds his account of radical freedom and responsibility.

Question 3Core theme: Being human

Which concept does Sartre use to describe the self-deception in which a person denies their own freedom by treating themselves as a fixed thing?

  1. Bad faith Correct answer.
  2. The Other
  3. Being-in-itself
  4. The absurd

Explanation

Bad faith (mauvaise foi) is the attempt to escape the anxiety of freedom by adopting a role as though it were an inescapable fact. Sartre's waiter example illustrates a person playing at being a waiter as if that exhausted their identity, thereby denying their own transcendence.

Question 4Core theme: Being human

A student argues that because her genetics and upbringing were not chosen by her, she cannot be held responsible for who she has become. Which concept from the Being human theme does her argument most directly invoke?

  1. Hard determinism Correct answer.
  2. Compatibilism
  3. Libertarian free will
  4. Existential freedom

Explanation

Hard determinism holds that causal antecedents fully explain action, so genuine freedom and moral responsibility are illusions. The student's claim that unchosen causes absolve her of responsibility is the classic hard determinist inference from universal causation to the denial of free will.

Question 5Core theme: Being human

The compatibilist position on free will typically maintains that:

  1. Freedom requires the ability to have acted otherwise in an absolute sense
  2. Freedom is compatible with determinism when actions flow from the agent's own desires Correct answer.
  3. No action is free because all events are causally determined
  4. Freedom consists in exemption from all causal influence whatsoever

Explanation

Compatibilists such as Hume and Frankfurt argue that determinism does not undermine responsibility as long as actions issue from the agent's own character and deliberation rather than external coercion. Freedom is thus analysed as a kind of voluntary, unconstrained agency rather than as exemption from causation.

Question 6Core theme: Being human

In the Being human theme, the claim that the mind is identical with physical brain states is known as:

  1. Identity theory Correct answer.
  2. Substance dualism
  3. Panpsychism
  4. Behaviourism

Explanation

Identity theory holds that mental states just are physical states of the brain, so talk of a pain is talk of a particular neural event described in a different vocabulary. It is a physicalist position that avoids the interaction problem facing dualism.

Question 7Core theme: Being human

A philosopher maintains that mental and physical substances are distinct yet causally interact. Which problem most famously threatens this view?

  1. Explaining how personal identity persists over time
  2. Explaining how language acquisition is possible
  3. Explaining how an immaterial substance can causally affect a physical one Correct answer.
  4. Explaining how conscious experience could arise from matter

Explanation

Interactionist dualism faces the problem of explaining the mechanism by which a non-spatial, immaterial mind could bring about changes in physical matter. This is the interaction objection pressed by critics from Elisabeth of Bohemia onward against Cartesian dualism.

Question 8Core theme: Being human

The 'hard problem of consciousness' as formulated by Chalmers concerns:

  1. Why physical processes are accompanied by subjective experience at all Correct answer.
  2. How the brain processes information functionally
  3. How neural correlates correlate with reported states
  4. How to measure behavioural responses reliably

Explanation

Chalmers distinguishes the easy problems of explaining cognitive functions from the hard problem of explaining why there is something it is like to be in those states. The hard problem targets phenomenal consciousness, which functional accounts seem to leave unexplained.

Question 9Core theme: Being human

Locke's account of personal identity holds that a person's identity over time consists in:

  1. Membership in the same biological species
  2. Persistence of the same immaterial soul
  3. Continuity of the same physical body
  4. Continuity of consciousness and memory Correct answer.

Explanation

Locke argues that personal identity is forensic, extending to past actions only insofar as they are connected to present consciousness by memory. The same body or soul is neither necessary nor sufficient for the same person on his account.

Question 10Core theme: Being human

A surgeon argues that if a patient's memories and psychological traits were fully transferred to another body, the person would go with the psychology rather than the old body. This reasoning most closely reflects:

  1. A bodily continuity criterion of personal identity
  2. A psychological continuity criterion of personal identity Correct answer.
  3. A narrative identity criterion based on social roles
  4. A soul-based criterion of personal identity

Explanation

The psychological continuity criterion, following Locke and refined by Parfit, holds that what matters for identity is overlapping chains of memory and character, not the persistence of the same organism. The surgeon's reasoning applies exactly that criterion to a hypothetical transfer.

Question 11Core theme: Being human

Parfit's teletransportation and fission cases are used to support the conclusion that:

  1. What matters is psychological connectedness rather than strict identity Correct answer.
  2. Memory is irrelevant to survival
  3. Personal identity is guaranteed by bodily continuity
  4. The soul is the sole bearer of identity

Explanation

Parfit argues that in fission cases identity becomes indeterminate, yet survival clearly occurs, so identity cannot be what we fundamentally care about. He concludes that what matters is relation R: psychological connectedness and continuity, which can hold without strict identity.

Question 12Core theme: Being human

Aristotle's claim that 'man is by nature a political animal' is best understood as asserting that:

  1. Humans are naturally solitary and only contract into society
  2. Humans realise their nature only within a political community Correct answer.
  3. Human beings are determined entirely by biological instinct
  4. Political institutions are artificial conventions with no basis in nature

Explanation

For Aristotle, the polis is natural because humans possess logos and can deliberate about justice, capacities that only develop within a community. The city-state is thus prior in nature to the individual in the sense that it provides the conditions for human flourishing.

Question 13Core theme: Being human

Hobbes's account of human nature in the state of nature characterises humans as:

  1. Naturally cooperative and inclined to altruism without government
  2. Rational beings whose reason alone guarantees moral order
  3. Competitive and driven by self-preservation, requiring a sovereign to secure peace Correct answer.
  4. Political animals who flourish only in a city-state

Explanation

Hobbes describes the state of nature as a war of all against all, driven by competition, diffidence and glory, in which fear of violent death motivates the social contract. Sovereignty is justified because it alone provides the security that makes civilized life possible.

Question 14Core theme: Being human

Rousseau's claim that humans are 'naturally good' and corrupted by society implies that:

  1. Humans are innately selfish and require strong sovereign power
  2. Social institutions can distort an originally benign human nature Correct answer.
  3. Human nature is fixed and unchangeable by circumstance
  4. Moral virtue is impossible outside civilized society

Explanation

Rousseau contrasts the natural self-love (amour de soi) and pity of humans with the vanity and competition (amour-propre) fostered by social dependence. His point is that institutions shape and can corrupt character, not that humans are inherently wicked.

Question 15Core theme: Being human

The philosophical study of what it means to be human often distinguishes 'being human' as a biological category from 'personhood'. Personhood in this context typically refers to:

  1. The legal citizenship granted by a state
  2. Biological membership in the species Homo sapiens
  3. The capacity to reproduce with other members of a species
  4. Moral status grounded in capacities such as rationality and self-awareness Correct answer.

Explanation

Personhood is a normative status attributed on the basis of psychological capacities like reason, self-consciousness and moral agency, which is why philosophers debate whether all humans are persons and whether non-humans could be. This separates the descriptive biological category from the moral one.

Question 16Core theme: Being human

A philosopher argues that an individual's moral status depends on possessing self-consciousness and a conception of the future, so a permanently unconscious human lacks it while some animals might possess it. This position is most associated with:

  1. Tooley's and Singer's capacity-based accounts of personhood Correct answer.
  2. Kant's account of dignity grounded in all rational beings
  3. Descartes's claim that animals are mere machines
  4. Aquinas's account of the soul as the form of the body

Explanation

Tooley and Singer argue that personhood, and hence a serious right to life, depends on psychological capacities such as self-awareness and future-directed interests rather than species membership. This supports their controversial conclusions about infanticide and animal status.

Question 17Core theme: Being human

The claim that humans differ from other animals because they possess language and reason, and that this difference is morally significant, is most closely associated with:

  1. Darwin's continuity thesis about mental powers
  2. Aristotle's rational-animal conception of the human Correct answer.
  3. Hobbes's mechanistic psychology
  4. Ryle's critique of the ghost in the machine

Explanation

Aristotle defines the human as a rational animal, with logos distinguishing humans from other creatures and grounding their capacity for ethical and political life. This rationalist demarcation has been a persistent reference point in debates about human distinctiveness.

Question 18Core theme: Being human

Which development in modern thought most directly challenged the traditional view of humans as uniquely rational and morally special among animals?

  1. Plato's theory of Forms
  2. Kant's categorical imperative
  3. Descartes's cogito argument
  4. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection Correct answer.

Explanation

Darwin's account of common descent and continuity of mental powers placed humans within the natural order, undermining the assumption of a radical gulf between humans and other animals. This fuelled later debates about human distinctiveness and the moral status of animals.

Question 19Core theme: Being human

The philosophical position that there is no fixed human nature and that 'human' is a historically contingent construction is best described as:

  1. Aristotelian naturalism
  2. Biological determinism
  3. Anti-essentialism Correct answer.
  4. Cartesian dualism

Explanation

Anti-essentialism denies that humans share a timeless defining essence, holding instead that conceptions of the human are shaped by history, culture and power. It draws on existentialist and post-structuralist critiques of fixed nature.

Question 20Core theme: Being human

A critic claims that existentialist freedom is exaggerated because people are constrained by class, gender and economic structures they did not choose. Which response is most consistent with Sartre's position?

  1. Freedom is entirely illusory and all action is determined by structure
  2. Freedom means being able to escape all social conditions at will
  3. Structures have no influence on action whatsoever
  4. Facticity constrains the situation, but freedom lies in how one chooses to respond to it Correct answer.

Explanation

Sartre acknowledges facticity, the given facts of one's body, history and situation, but insists that freedom consists in the way consciousness transcends and interprets those facts. Constraints shape the situation without fully determining the response, preserving a domain of choice and responsibility.

Question 21Core theme: Being human

The problem of other minds asks how we can know that:

  1. Other beings have subjective experiences rather than merely behaving as if they do Correct answer.
  2. The mind and body are the same substance
  3. Personal identity persists through memory loss
  4. The external world exists independently of perception

Explanation

Since we have direct access only to our own experience, the problem of other minds concerns the inference from others' behaviour and physiology to the conclusion that they are conscious. This bears on the Being human theme because it questions how we attribute mentality to other humans and to animals.

Question 22Core theme: Being human

The argument from analogy for knowledge of other minds reasons that:

  1. Because others resemble me in behaviour and structure, their behaviour probably stems from similar experience Correct answer.
  2. Because mental states are identical with behaviour
  3. Because I can directly introspect others' mental states
  4. Because language alone guarantees consciousness

Explanation

The argument from analogy infers others' mentality from the observed similarity between their bodies and behaviour and my own, where I know experience accompanies behaviour. It is an inductive inference and has been criticised for its weak evidential base and reliance on a single case.

Question 23Core theme: Being human

In the Being human theme, the term 'facticity' as used by existentialists refers to:

  1. The illusion of free will
  2. The given conditions of one's existence that cannot be chosen Correct answer.
  3. The identity of mind and body
  4. The capacity to create values from nothing

Explanation

Facticity names the contingent givens of a life, such as birth, body, historical situation and mortality, which consciousness confronts but does not create. Existentialists argue that freedom operates within these limits rather than abolishing them.

Question 24Core theme: Being human

A debate asks whether a human being in a persistent vegetative state retains the moral status of a person. Which pair of concepts is most directly at issue?

  1. Biological humanity versus personhood as a capacity-based status Correct answer.
  2. Rationalism versus empiricism
  3. Essentialism versus dualism
  4. Determinism versus compatibilism

Explanation

The case forces a distinction between being biologically human and being a person in the moral sense, since the capacity-based criteria of self-awareness and interests may be absent. This is a central application of the personhood debate within the Being human theme.

Question 25Core theme: Being human

Which statement best captures the tension between freedom and responsibility in Sartre's ethics?

  1. Freedom absolves the agent of responsibility for consequences
  2. Responsibility belongs to society rather than to individuals
  3. Responsibility extends only to outcomes one directly intends
  4. In choosing for oneself, one implicitly chooses an image of humanity for all Correct answer.

Explanation

Sartre argues that in choosing, the agent affirms the value of that choice for others, so responsibility is amplified to a kind of universal legislation. This is why he calls humans 'condemned to be free' and denies that one can offload responsibility onto circumstances or roles.

Question 26Core theme: Being human

In the Being human theme, dual-aspect theories of the mind–body relation claim that mental and physical descriptions refer to two aspects of one underlying reality. Which label best fits this position?

  1. Property dualism
  2. Eliminative materialism
  3. Substance dualism
  4. Neutral monism or double-aspect theory Correct answer.

Explanation

Double-aspect or neutral monist views treat mind and body as two ways of describing a single underlying reality, so neither is reducible to the other. This differs from dualism, which posits two kinds of entity or property, and from materialism, which reduces the mental to the physical.

Question 27Core theme: Being human

A student argues that mental states are real and distinct from brain states, yet every mental state is caused by and dependent on a brain state. Which position is the student expressing?

  1. Epiphenomenalism
  2. Reductive physicalism
  3. Property dualism Correct answer.
  4. Idealism

Explanation

Property dualism accepts that only physical substance exists but holds that mental properties are genuinely distinct from physical properties and depend on them for their occurrence. The student's claim of distinctness plus dependence matches this view precisely.

Question 28Core theme: Being human

Which thought experiment is most commonly used to challenge physicalist accounts of consciousness by asking what it would be like to know all physical facts yet still not know a subjective experience?

  1. The Chinese room
  2. The ship of Theseus
  3. The trolley problem
  4. Mary's room Correct answer.

Explanation

Mary's room presents a scientist who knows every physical fact about colour vision but has never seen colour, raising the question of whether subjective experience is exhausted by physical information. This is a knowledge argument against physicalism about consciousness.

Question 29Core theme: Being human

A theorist claims that consciousness just is a certain kind of information processing, so any system performing the right computations would be conscious regardless of its substrate. Which view does this describe?

  1. Biological naturalism
  2. Functionalism about mind Correct answer.
  3. Substance dualism
  4. Solipsism

Explanation

Functionalism identifies mental states with functional roles rather than physical material, so multiple realisability allows any substrate performing the right computations to be conscious. This contrasts with views that tie mind to specifically biological properties.

Question 30Core theme: Being human

Searle's Chinese room argument is primarily intended to show which claim about strong artificial intelligence?

  1. That machines can never process information
  2. That consciousness requires a physical body
  3. That syntactic symbol manipulation is insufficient for semantic understanding Correct answer.
  4. That computers are more intelligent than humans

Explanation

Searle argues that a system can follow formal rules and produce correct outputs without understanding meaning, so syntax alone does not yield semantics. The conclusion targets the claim that a suitably programmed computer literally understands.

Question 31Core theme: Being human

Which concept from phenomenology describes the lived, first-person body as the subject of experience rather than as an object studied by physiology?

  1. The Leibnizian monad
  2. The lived body (Leib) Correct answer.
  3. The categorical imperative
  4. The general will

Explanation

Phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty distinguish the lived body, the body as experienced and as the vehicle of perception, from the physical body studied objectively. This distinction is central to phenomenological accounts of being human.

Question 32Core theme: Being human

A philosopher claims that human existence precedes essence, meaning we first exist and then create our own nature through choices. Which thinker is most associated with this formulation?

  1. Aristotle
  2. Descartes
  3. Sartre Correct answer.
  4. Hume

Explanation

Sartre's existentialism famously holds that for humans existence precedes essence, so there is no fixed human nature determining what we must be. We are condemned to choose and thereby define ourselves.

Question 33Core theme: Being human

A person claims her identity is shaped by being a mother, a citizen and a worker, and that these roles partly constitute who she is. Which philosophical framework best captures this claim?

  1. Substance dualism about persons
  2. Psychological continuity theory of personal identity
  3. Bundle theory of the self
  4. Narrative and relational accounts of the self Correct answer.

Explanation

Narrative and relational accounts hold that selves are constituted through socially embedded roles and self-told stories rather than a bare metaphysical core. The claim that roles partly constitute identity fits this framework.

Question 34Core theme: Being human

Which criticism is most directly aimed at the claim that personal identity depends on psychological continuity?

  1. It struggles with cases where psychological connections branch into two equally continuous successors Correct answer.
  2. It relies on the existence of an immaterial soul
  3. It cannot explain how physical objects persist
  4. It denies that humans have bodies

Explanation

Fission cases, in which one person's psychology continues in two successors, challenge the claim that psychological continuity is sufficient for identity, since identity cannot be one-to-many. This is a central objection to psychological continuity theories.

Question 35Core theme: Being human

The phrase 'the human is the animal that has logos' is associated with which classical thinker?

  1. Protagoras
  2. Plotinus
  3. Aristotle Correct answer.
  4. Epicurus

Explanation

Aristotle defines humans as rational animals, where logos refers to reason and speech, grounding his account of human nature and the political life. This definition is central to classical accounts of what distinguishes humans.

Question 36Core theme: Being human

A theorist argues that because humans are tool-making, symbol-using animals, the boundary between human and animal is a matter of degree rather than kind. Which position does this support?

  1. The view that animals are automata without feeling
  2. Strict Cartesian dualism of humans and animals
  3. Continuity between humans and other animals Correct answer.
  4. The claim that humans lack any distinctive capacities

Explanation

Emphasising tool use and symbol use as capacities shared to varying degrees supports a continuity view, where differences are quantitative rather than absolute. This challenges sharp human-animal divides.

Question 37Core theme: Being human

Which claim best expresses the idea that moral status should be extended to some non-human animals on the basis of sentience?

  1. Only beings with language have moral status
  2. Moral status belongs only to rational agents
  3. Moral status depends on membership in the human species
  4. Any being capable of suffering has a claim to moral consideration Correct answer.

Explanation

Sentience-based approaches, associated with utilitarians such as Bentham and Singer, hold that the capacity for suffering grounds moral consideration regardless of species. This rejects both language-based and species-membership criteria.

Question 38Core theme: Being human

A thinker argues that 'human' is not a natural kind but a category whose boundaries are drawn by historical and political practices. Which concept best names this position?

  1. Biological essentialism
  2. Social constructionism about the human Correct answer.
  3. Cartesian rationalism
  4. Aristotelian naturalism

Explanation

Social constructionism holds that categories such as the human are products of historical, social and political practices rather than fixed natural divisions. It denies that 'human' picks out an essence independent of these practices.

Question 39Core theme: Being human

A critic argues that appeals to a universal human nature often function to present culturally specific values as inevitable. Which methodological concern does this raise for the Being human theme?

  1. That universality is logically impossible
  2. That philosophy cannot discuss human nature at all
  3. That all empirical research on humans is invalid
  4. That claims about human nature may encode and legitimise particular power relations Correct answer.

Explanation

The concern is ideological: descriptions of human nature can naturalise contingent social arrangements and thereby legitimise existing power relations. This calls for critical scrutiny of who benefits from a given account rather than rejecting empirical inquiry outright.

Question 40Core theme: Being human

Which pair of concepts best captures the existentialist tension between the constraints we did not choose and the projects we freely undertake?

  1. Actuality and potentiality
  2. Noumenon and phenomenon
  3. Synthetic a priori and analytic a posteriori
  4. Facticity and transcendence Correct answer.

Explanation

Existentialists pair facticity, the given conditions of one's situation such as body, history and circumstance, with transcendence, the capacity to project beyond them. Freedom is understood as situated between these two poles.

Question 41Optional theme: Aesthetics

In the IB Philosophy course, the Aesthetics optional theme requires candidates to examine the nature of beauty and art primarily through which approach?

  1. The systematic philosophical analysis of concepts, arguments and experiences raised by art and beauty Correct answer.
  2. The empirical measurement of aesthetic preferences using controlled psychological experiments
  3. The historical chronology of artistic movements from antiquity to the present
  4. The technical appraisal of craft technique and material composition in artworks

Explanation

The Aesthetics theme is a philosophical inquiry, so it asks candidates to analyse concepts such as beauty, art, taste and aesthetic experience and to evaluate the arguments surrounding them. Empirical measurement, art history and craft technique may inform discussion, but they are not the philosophical method the theme demands.

Question 42Optional theme: Aesthetics

Kant's account of the judgement of taste treats a genuine aesthetic judgement as both subjective and universal. Which formulation best captures that combination?

  1. The judgement is grounded in a concept of the object that can be demonstrated to anyone
  2. The judgement expresses a majority preference established through social convention
  3. The judgement is felt by the subject yet claims the agreement of everyone who judges freely Correct answer.
  4. The judgement reports a private sensation that no other person could ever share

Explanation

For Kant, the judgement of taste rests on a feeling of pleasure in the subject, so it is not a cognitive claim about the object's properties. Yet it demands universal assent, speaking with a 'universal voice' while remaining grounded in feeling rather than concepts.

Question 43Optional theme: Aesthetics

Which position holds that the aesthetic value of an artwork is determined by the responses of audiences rather than by properties of the work itself?

  1. Aesthetic subjectivism Correct answer.
  2. Institutionalism
  3. Formalism
  4. Aesthetic realism

Explanation

Aesthetic subjectivism locates value in the audience's experience or response, so a work is valuable because it elicits a certain reaction. This contrasts with views that ground value in the object, in social institutions, or in formal structure.

Question 44Optional theme: Aesthetics

A critic claims that a photograph of a landscape cannot have the same aesthetic merit as a painting of it because the photographer merely records what is there. Which counter-argument most directly challenges this claim?

  1. Photographs are usually cheaper to produce than paintings, so they reach wider audiences
  2. Photography has been recognised as an art form by major galleries and museums
  3. Landscapes are more beautiful in reality than any representation of them
  4. Photographers make substantive choices of framing, timing, light and subject that shape the image Correct answer.

Explanation

The claim under attack is that photography is mere recording without artistic agency. The strongest reply identifies the deliberate expressive decisions a photographer makes, which show authorship rather than passive transcription. Institutional recognition and cost are relevant facts but do not address the conceptual charge of mere recording.

Question 45Optional theme: Aesthetics

Collingwood distinguishes art proper from what he calls 'amusement art' and 'magical art'. What does he take to be essential to art proper?

  1. The accurate imitation of nature according to established rules
  2. The expression of emotion in a form that clarifies it for the artist and audience Correct answer.
  3. The arousal of a predetermined emotional response in the audience
  4. The communication of a moral lesson through pleasing imagery

Explanation

Collingwood treats art proper as the expression of emotion, where expressing is not venting but clarifying an emotion in an articulated form. Arousing a set response or teaching a moral belongs to what he calls amusement or magic, not to art proper.

Question 46Optional theme: Aesthetics

Danto's concept of 'the artworld' is introduced chiefly to explain which feature of art?

  1. The way that membership in an artistic context enables something to be art Correct answer.
  2. The emotional intensity that great works generate in viewers
  3. The formal harmony that distinguishes successful compositions
  4. The economic value that collectors assign to rare works

Explanation

Danto argues that something becomes art only against a background of artistic theory and tradition, which he calls the artworld. This explains how perceptually indistinguishable objects can differ in status, one being art and the other not.

Question 47Optional theme: Aesthetics

A gallery displays a mass-produced urinal as an artwork. Which theory is best placed to explain why the object counts as art despite lacking craft, beauty or expression?

  1. The expression theory of art
  2. The formalist theory of art
  3. The mimetic theory of art
  4. The institutional theory of art Correct answer.

Explanation

The institutional theory holds that art status is conferred by the artworld, its institutions and its practices, rather than by intrinsic properties of the object. That explains how an ordinary manufactured item can become art when placed within an artistic context.

Question 48Optional theme: Aesthetics

Which claim is most characteristic of aesthetic realism?

  1. Aesthetic properties exist independently of what any observer happens to feel Correct answer.
  2. Beauty is a projection of human feeling onto a neutral world
  3. Aesthetic judgements are merely expressions of personal preference
  4. Aesthetic value is fixed by the conventions of a particular culture

Explanation

Aesthetic realism holds that aesthetic properties, such as beauty or elegance, are genuine features of things that obtain independently of observers. This distinguishes it from subjectivism, expressivism and cultural relativism.

Question 49Optional theme: Aesthetics

Hume's essay on taste invokes the 'standard of taste'. What role does this standard play in his account?

  1. It reduces aesthetic value to the moral usefulness of a work
  2. It provides a rule that decides aesthetic disputes by deductive proof
  3. It shows that all aesthetic judgements are equally valid and unresolvable
  4. It identifies the true judges whose refined sentiment can arbitrate disagreements Correct answer.

Explanation

Hume acknowledges diversity of taste but argues that a standard emerges from the verdicts of qualified critics, those with delicacy of sentiment, practice and freedom from prejudice. Their joint testimony provides a rule by which disputes can be adjudicated, though not by deductive demonstration.

Question 50Optional theme: Aesthetics

Which thesis is central to aesthetic formalism as defended by Clive Bell?

  1. Art is valuable when it accurately represents the visible world
  2. Art is valuable when it expresses the artist's sincere emotions
  3. Art is valuable when it produces significant form, combinations that provoke aesthetic emotion Correct answer.
  4. Art is valuable when it serves a moral or political purpose

Explanation

Bell identifies 'significant form' as the arrangement of lines, shapes and colours that elicits a distinctive aesthetic emotion. For him this formal quality, not representation or moral purpose, is what makes something art.