"Some doofus in Kansas has argued that abortion is murder, providing as a supporting premise that it stops a beating heart. Give five counterexamples."
You might be able to do it for philosophy by sub-specialty. The test for Heideggerians already exists (pdf):
I imagine a similar nightmare in which all of us in the Heidegger Conference are compelled, like elementary school children, to take a standardized test in Heidegger. The bell rings out over the schoolyard -- say, at my own Mission Dolores Grammar School in San Francisco. Reluctantly we leave our games and, under the watchful eyes of the Sisters of Notre Dame, trudge into our seventh-grade classroom. We slouch into our seats and whisper a desperate prayer to der letzte Gott as the stern-faced Sister Constantia hands each of us a number-two pencil and a bluebook. There is only one question:
"In plain English, define each of the following terms and relate them to one another:
Ereignis, Geschick, Lichtung, Austrag, Entzug, alethia, Seyn, Sein, Sein, and Wesung."
It is a scary dream, and I offer it only half in jest. What if we actually did have to take such an exam at our annual Heidegger meeting, professors as well as graduate students, "Presbyterians and pagans alike," as Melville says. Wouldn't it be interesting to compare blue books at the end? And how would we distinguish a right answer from a wrong one?
That last question, of course, is the difference.
I was actually semi-serious; asking for counterexamples in a situation where there's a danger of affirming the consequent seems both central and likely to produce wrong answers (at least among the folk).
I have to agree with a bunch of people at MR. The question was really poorly framed. But then, I am not an economist.
I like the response of the guy who was interviewing for jobs at the meeting and thought about the survey, "This is the last thing I want to be doing right now."
So, in the essay, the first and second "Sein"s are distinguished by one of them's being struck through, thus: Sein. At least that's how it appears to me, missing certain fonts. Is that how it appears to others?
And as long as we're talking about Heidegger, don't you think it's time to take down the reading group link and admit defeat? What happened?
For a while, Heidegger was writing Sein with a line through it.
As for the reading group, we were waiting for you!
You guys should probably read The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger by Pierre Bourdieu.
Some people assign Peter Singers book in intro to moral philosophy. That seems a pretty basic error.
I suppose something from phil 101 that doesn't seem to come up much later (at least in undergrad). SUch as: Who's the father of utlitarianism? What did Socrates demonstrate in the Euthyphro?
Or ethics 201:
Or (T/F) an incontenant person knows what vice he is committing.
What is Mill's guiding command for law in On Virtue?
9. Because you disagree with Singer or because Singer doesn't philosophically lay out a moral framework for students to learn from and thus doesn't seem suited to the beginning student of ethics?
phuck. On Liberty, not On Virtue. And there's one "or" too many up there.
Ah. Michael's comment reveals the trouble with coming up with philosophical parallels. "Who's the father of utilitarianism?" is tricky because at least a few people might have claim to it...and it doesn't really matter. The neat thing about opportunity cost is that it's an important thing to understand (allegedly); no one thinks you're a bad philosopher if you forgot what happened in some Platonic dialogue.
Admittedly, I didn't grasp that part of the question. But then, is there anything the ignorance of which would signify you as a bad philosopher, in general? Perhaps not knowing what a "premise" is. Or a contrapositive. But I'm not even sure about that.
14 was a bit silly.
I claim a sinus infection mental handicap. I need coffee.
(for those of you unfamiliar, not Fontana to be sure, the SIMH carries an INT penalty of -4)
Some sort of trick logic question of stating P --> Q, ~P, where one of the answer choices is ~Q might work, if ~Q is implicated strongly by the context.
Probably a question about Kant would work, now that I think about it. Plato is trivia, but one can't be considered a modern philosopher without taking Kant into account.
A question about logic clearly wouldn't work for a large swath of the philosophical population (at least globally) -- perhaps the difficulty of coming up with "the" question for philosophy indicates the degree to which Anglo-American philosophers and everyone else are basically now working in two separate disciplines.
Cala, good point. Your comment reminded me about a presentation about information representation I saw once-- apparently there's some kind of set-up where just about everyone, including logicians, gets a structurally simple question wrong for that reason. If I could remember the details, this comment would be interesting. -P.
You're really trying to find out who's a bad philosopher from one question, right? Based on comments here, it seems pretty straightforward: you make a comment about women you find attractive, like, "Lowell. Her Jamie Ross character is just about my ideal woman." If the person to whom you are speaking simply continues the conversation, he is a bad philosopher. If they make a canonical little bitch comment, there is still hope.
I think the difficulty in coming up with 'the' question can be attributed to the simple fact that introductory economics is empirical and introductory philosophy is not. When was the last time a philo prof gave a multiple choice exam?
Adam, jokes aside, even continental philosophers are familiar with basic logic, no? This isn't the incompleteness theorem for first-order logic.
Some form of tricky syllogism might work, too, especially if said philosophers were on the job market. I'm pretty sympathetic to the economists; the word problem was somewhat ambiguous.
This isn't the incompleteness theorem for first-order logic.
That's good, because IIRC, first-order logic is complete. Gödel's Completeness Theorem and all that.
If these were top economists, but they got the question worng anyway, obviously there is no such question for economics -- or at least, "opportunity cost" isn't it. So no distinction from philosophy, or as far as that goes, aromatherapy, has been made yet here.
So aromatherapy, philosophy and economics are on a par, until we come up with a killer question for one of the three.
Yes, Ben, but we're all eager for you to post the completeness result for second-order.
Cala, You're probably right about that -- I think that for most programs, there's at least a formal requirement for knowing logic (although I'm sure the rigor with which it is enforced varies).
But if that were the question, my true status would be revealed -- I'm not even a continental philosopher, but just a dumb old theology student. I don't even know what "P" and "Q" stand for in logic problems!
As long as you mind them, Adam, it's no matter.
"People who pick Eric Clapton over Bob Dylan do not belong to the group of intelligent life forms. Discuss."
Hey, at least Clapton can play the guitar.
I guessed right on the opportunity-cost question, BTW. I wonder about the validity of the original test.
I used to have such a test for Engineers. I had a little toy that sat on my desk. It looked something like a hockey puck with a concave upper surface and a tiny top that spun up there.
It would slow down, approach the center, hit a few plastic bumps, and then rev up and spin out from the center again.
I couldn't believe the number of supposed professionals who said something like "Oh, yeah, it gains momentum by hitting those bumps."
Sure, and I have a flubber ball that bounces higher with every bounce, too.
When was the last time a philo prof gave a multiple choice exam?
Um... I'm far from the only one. It's a good way to make sure people in intro-level courses at large schools where not everyone is very motivated has read and somewhat understood the reading.