Quote Quiz
Can a Remembered Claim Support Your Judgment?
Five questions examine Locke’s reading-and-thinking distinction, an imaginary book’s reasoning, and the scope of its claims.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours.
Attributed to: John Locke
Work: Of the Conduct of the Understanding · Source location: Section 20, Reading; p. 501 (1853 collected edition)
No prior knowledge is needed. Choose an answer to see the explanation and evidence.
1Understanding
How do reading and thinking relate in the quotation?
Correct answer: Reading supplies material; thinking connects it with understanding and judgment.
Reading supplies material even though it does not complete judgment by itself. Making it ours concerns understanding connections, not transferring ownership of sentences.
Evidence: “What Locke Calls Material” and “Borrowing a Thought Without Handing Over Judgment.”
2Context
Locke recognizes value in observing and following good writers’ deep thought and careful reasoning. Which interpretation does this caution against?
Correct answer: Learning from others has no value; only independent discoveries count as knowledge.
Locke acknowledges the value of learning from good thinking in other writers. Examining matters for yourself should not be turned into a requirement to discover all knowledge alone.
Evidence: The final paragraph of “What Locke Calls Material” and the discussion of good writers in Section 20.
3Critical thinking
In the imaginary book, borrowing increased during the trial and many new books arrived. What should be examined before accepting Sunday opening as the sole cause?
Correct answer: How other changes during the period affect the conclusion, and what explanation supports an effect from opening.
The issue is the support connecting an observed increase with a conclusion about its cause. Another change alone neither disproves the increase nor establishes a different cause.
Evidence: The hypothetical trial and new acquisitions in “The Book’s Claim and the Conclusion You Add,” not a question about an established policy effect.
4Application
Suppose the effect of Sunday opening is well supported at that library. What distinction matters before expecting the same result at every other library?
Correct answer: The scope supported by the original evidence and the scope of the new application
A well-supported claim about one setting may require more explanation before it applies to every other setting. Distinguish the book’s conclusion from a reader’s extension.
Evidence: The scope discussion in “The Book’s Claim and the Conclusion You Add” and “Borrowing a Thought Without Handing Over Judgment.”
5Critical thinking
You discover that one claim lacks an adequate supporting explanation. Which response best fits the reading?
Correct answer: Suspend judgment on that claim and distinguish the missing support from an assessment of the whole book.
Examining foundations and reasoning includes assessing the scope of a gap. Missing support for one claim does not alone discredit the entire book; publication and confidence do not supply that support.
Evidence: The discussion of suspending judgment without declaring the entire book false in “The Book’s Claim and the Conclusion You Add.”
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Can a Remembered Claim Support Your Judgment?