The History of Ideas Quiz 2015

At the heart of Shinto belief is the idea of
___X__, which translates variously as ‘god’, ‘a
spirit’ or ‘divine essence’.
The word ___X__ is best known to us from a
related word ___XY__ that describes an act of
“divinity in the wind.”
Give me the blank & the related word.
1

While this 2 word term has existed since the 18th
century, its present currency is from a 1970s
anthology titled The Black Woman by Toni Cade.
A new branch of linguistics called “Euphemism
Treadmill” emerged in the 1980’s thanks to
feminists & intellectual groups who decided to
rephrase terms that were otherwise offensive.
In Britain, some schools altered popular nursery
rhymes to reflect this new ideology.
What 2 word term?
2

Walt Disney called it ‘The Plausible Impossible.’
The idea is a subplot in the movie clip you will
see.
Mark O’Donnell’s Laws of ______ ______
appeared in Esquire in 1980 & a version printed
in 1994 by the IEEE in its journal helped spread
the idea among the technical crowd.
What idea (2 word answer)?
3

Founded in 1755, the Chochmah,
Binah, Da'at (Wisdom, Understanding,
and Knowledge) represents the
intellectual underpinnings of which
movement?
5

Shown in the visual are the
Kharites, who were
attendants of the goddesses
Aphrodite and Hera. Their
name meant Grace, and thus
they were the three
goddesses of grace, beauty,
adornment, mirth, festivity,
dance and song. The idea of
using their name to describe
leadership, authority &
domination was given by Max
Weber.
What word or idea that
Weber used to describe
Hitler’s rule?
6

Charisma (the idea of Charismatic Authority or
Charismatic Leadership). Charisma derives from the
Kharites.

In chapter 4 of his book The God Delusion, Richard
Dawkins advances an argument for atheism he calls the
“Ultimate _______ ____ Gambit,” in reference to Fred
Hoyle’s famous comment about a _______ ____
assembling by chance after a tornado in a junkyard.
Just as Hoyle’s argument appeals to the improbability
of evolution, Dawkins’s argument appeals to the
improbability of God.
FITB?
7

To be successful, a __A__ _B__ argument requires that
the audience be ignorant or uninformed of the original
argument. Several movies spawned thanks to the idea.
In the UK, ____C___ ___D___ is a traditional English
throwing game in which players throw sticks or battens
at a model of an old woman's head. The game gets its
name based on a blackface doll inspired by a low-life
character named "Black Sal", which appeared in an
1821 series of novellas entitled Life of London by Pierce
Egan, a contemporary of Charles Dickens.
Identify both fallacies (AB, CD)
8
Visuals

AB – Straw Man or Straw Dog Fallacy
CD- Aunt Sally

What word generally used in the context of legislature
was originally used to the denote the British
Parliament’s Upper House/Chamber and Lower
House/Chamber?
In reality, this is a misnomer as there are actually 3 –
The Privy Council, The House of Lords & House of
Commons!
9

Bicameral (meaning Two-Chambers)

This Latin phrase has been used in English since the
mid-19th century and derives from the same Latin root
meaning ‘welcome’ from where the words gratitude &
congratulations derive. The idea first appeared in
diplomatic contexts to refer to a foreign representative
no longer acceptable by their host nation’s
government. Now, the same idea is applied to any
unwanted or unwelcome person.
What phrase?
10

The idea of using this metaphor originated when
Shakespeare picked this up & used it in Julius Caesar.
CASSIUS: Did Cicero say any thing?
CASCA: Ay, he spoke _____.
CASSIUS: To what effect?
CASCA: Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the
face again: but those that understood him smiled at
one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own
part, it was _____ to me.
Phrase/Metaphor?
11

‘Kirk is certain to die within a week but is being kept
alive on a life-support system. His heart & kidneys
happen to be a perfect match for Scottie and Bones,
who are certain to die before him if they do not get the
transplants they need but have excellent prospects of
recovery if they do. Is it right to let Kirk die – or perhaps
even to kill him – in order to save Scottie and Bones?’
The above is a classic exam question in universities on
an idea proposed by Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th
century and later expanded by John Stuart Mills. Give
me a single word for this theory that is also called ‘the
greatest happiness principle?’
12

The principal rival to JP Morgan in the early 20th
century was the bank, Kuhn, Loeb & Co., which later
merged with Lehmann Brothers & finally American
Express.
The founder Solomon Loeb left his entire endowment
to his son James. James Loeb gave birth to an idea
(1911) that is now called “facing-page translation”.
Now about 104 years later, another father-son combo
modelled something similar based on the idea that
Loeb started?
What idea?
13

Murty Classical Library based on the Loeb Classical
Library

14
In astrophysics and physical cosmology,
__A____' paradox, named after the German
astronomer A, is called the "dark night sky
paradox.” It argues that the darkness of the
night sky conflicts with the assumption of an
infinite and eternal static universe.
While it is named after ___A___, the idea has
been stated by many others like Kepler, Halley
and Lord Kelvin. Interestingly, the author
__B____, wrote a prose poem Eureka, dedicated
to Alexander von Humboldt, where he tried to
resolve the apparent paradox. A, B?

Olbers’ Paradox
Edgar Allan Poe

15
First explored by Longinus, the idea of the
______ became especially popular in the Age of
Reason/Enlightenment. The idea evades easy
definition. Today the word is used for the most
ordinary reasons, for a ‘______ ’ tennis shot or a
‘______ ’ evening. In the history of ideas, it has
a deeper meaning, pointing to the heights of
something truly extraordinary, an ideal that
artists have long pursued. It spans painting
(Turner/Monet), architecture (Boullee/Ledoux),
philosophy (Burke/Kant) & literature (Victor
Hugo). What idea? (Visuals follow)

16
The term AB was used first by wildlife scientist
and conservationist Raymond F. Dasmann in the
1968 book A Different Kind of Country.
Thomas Lovejoy, in the foreword to the book
Conservation Biology, introduced the term to
the scientific community.
Until then the term CB was common in scientific
circles. AB’s contracted form A’B was coined by
W.G. Rosen in 1985.
AB, CB & A’B?

AB- Biological Diversity
CB- Natural Diversity
A’B - Biodiversity

17
Ver Sacrum (meaning "Sacred Spring" in Latin)
was the official magazine of this “breakaway”
art movement. This movement included
painters, sculptors, and architects. The first
president of the movement was Gustav Klimt.
Similar movements existed in Berlin & Munich
but the one started by Klimt & Co is perhaps the
most famous. The group’s most prominent
architect was Joseph Maria Olbrich who also
designed the most famous building associated
with the movement.
Which movement? Visuals

The Vienna Secession.
Just Secession is fine

18
In 2003, he was the first recipient of the Virtual Nobel
Prize in Psychology from the University of Klagenfurt,
“for his pioneering achievements in the experimental
investigation of consciousness, initiation of action, and
the neuroscience of free will.” Who?

19
The Scottish metaphysical writer, Professor
James Frederick Ferrier coined what term
for a branch of philosophy from the Greek
for ‘Study of Knowledge?’

20
Shown in the visual is Socrates’ speech (which was
really written by ___A___’s) as part of an encomium (B)
that was ironically held at the house of the tragedian (C
) in Athens. A’s ideas are the origin of the concept of D.
The rungs of this ladder (visual) are:
1) loving one attractive body or another
2) loving physical beauty in general
3) loving the beauty of people’s activity
4) loving the beauty of intellectual endeavors
5) loving the intellectual itself as what endures of the
beauty of love.

A – Diotima (Diotima’s Ladder)
B - Symposium
C – Agathon (which describes the
banquet given to celebrate his
obtaining a prize for his first tragedy at
the Lenaia in 416.)
D – Platonic Love

The R Mutt sticker project is an online project that
pays tribute to _____ _____, who challenged people
to ask themselves “What is art”. The project is a
Tumblr page with photos from around the world.
Tribute to whom? What photos?
21

Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. Photos of the R. Mutt
Sticker placed on toilets around the world.

In response to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s list of Christian
things that he likes, uses, accepts despite not
believing in the Christian God, the blogger Thony
Christie says “The use of ___ ___ goes back to Dennis
the Short in the sixth century CE in his attempt to
produce an accurate system to determine the date of
Easter. He introduced it to replace the Alexandrian
method of calculating Easter, because Diocletian was
notorious for having persecuted the Christians.
Dionysius’ system found very little resonance until the
Venerable Bede used it in his Ecclesiastical History of
the English People(8th century CE).
22

__X__ is derived from a Greek word literally meaning “a
choice.” St. Irenaeus defined this as a deviation from the
standard of sound doctrine. This definition provided a model
for subsequent conceptions of ___X___ . Referring to the
Greek word, St. Jerome wrote that each one chooses the rule
that one judges to be the best.
___X___ is denial or doubt of any defined doctrine, it is
sharply distinguished from ___Y___ , which denotes
deliberate abandonment of the Christian faith itself.
23

What rather censorious name(10 letter) refers to an
aggressive movement, which was also named as
Michurinism- in tribute to the plant breeder Ivan V.
Michurin?
24

Lysenkoism
Trofim Lysenko’s specialty was inventing nutty
schemes - things like stimulating the evolution of
trees by overcrowding them to get them to
cooperate, as though they were communist minions –
From Wire Magazine

Three out of four available derive their name from the
nature of the contents; the one in question, derives
its name from a personage of indefinitely remote
antiquity named ______, who is spoken of as the first
priest who ‘rubbed Agni forth’ or produced fire by
attrition, who ‘ first by sacrifices made the paths’ or
established communication between men and Gods,
and overcame hostile demons by means of
miraculous powers which he had received from
heaven. What am I talking about? FITB
25

“Political violence is the continuation of art by other
means. Wherever there are shock troops marching in
the streets or big pyres of burning books or the
sounds of mysterious gunfire near the parliament
building at night, you can bet that behind it all flutters
the soul of a sensitive young boy who always wanted
to be an artist. Brutishness is easy; anyone can
commit an atrocity in the right conditions. Violence
requires a highly rarefied aesthetic sensibility.”
From a blog titled Idiot Joy Showland
26

Artist ___X____ has produced fifty paintings of dogs.
The writer provides interesting correlation
1 Drone Strike = 1 painting of a dog(DP)
1 Round of Golf = 2 DP
1 Million Unemployed = 5 DP
14 Soldiers in Afghanistan = 1 DP
100 Palestinians Killed = 1 DP
2237 dead Iraqis = 1 DP
Identified the artist

In his book Discipline and Punish, Foucault argues that
we live in a world where the state exercises power in
the same fashion as the ____X_____ guards. Foucault
called it “disciplinary power;” the basic idea is that the
omnipresent fear of being watched by the state or
judged according to prevailing social norms caused
people to adjust the way they acted and even thought
without ever actually punished.
27

The __X__ was based on an idea of Samuel, who
while working in Russia for Prince Potemkin, hit upon
the 'central inspection principle' which would
facilitate the training and supervision of unskilled
workers by experienced craftsmen.
Samuel’s brother ___Y____ came to adapt this
principle for his idea, an 'Inspection House' envisaged
as a circular building.
27b

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls, asks the reader to imagine a
scene where a group of people are gathered to plan their own
future society, hammering out the details of what will basically
become a Social Contract. In this Original Position, the future
citizens do not yet know what part they will play in their upcoming
society. They must design their society behind what Rawls calls
the ____ __ ______.
The reason being “If a man knew that he was wealthy, he might
find it rational to advance the principle that various taxes for
welfare measures be counted unjust; if he knew that he were poor,
he would most likely propose the contrary principle. To represent
the desired restrictions, one imagines a situation in which
everyone is deprived of this sort of information”
28 – to create a method to determine morality of issues

Which untested assumption is made up of
two separate assumptions:
• _______ big – that space can have a volume, that
time can continue forever.
• ________ small – meaning continuum, and the
idea that even a litre of space contains an ____
number of points, that space can be stretched out
without anything bad happening, and that there
are quantities in nature that can vary continuously.
29

Veṅkaṭādhvari was a southern poet who lived in the
17th century near Kanchi. He was a Sri-vaishnavite
scholar of the Vadakalai school. His most famous work
is titled Rāghava-yādavīyaṃ - an anuloma-viloma
kāvya.
The 30 shlokas in this work narrate the story of Rama.
Eg.,
वन्देऽहं देवं तं श्रीतं रन्तारं कालं भासा यः ।
रामो रामाधीराप्यागो लीलामारायोध्ये वासे ॥
“I pay my obeisance to Lord Shri Rama, who with his heart pining for Sita, travelled
across the Sahyadri Hills and returned to Ayodhya after killing Ravana and sported with
his consort, Sita, in Ayodhya for a long time.”
What is so special about this kavya?
30

The shloka in reverse
सेवाध्येयो रामालाली गोप्याराधी मारामोरा ।
यस्साभालंकारं तारं तं श्रीतं वन्देहं देवं ॥
“I bow to Lord Shri Krishna, whose chest is the sporting resort of Shri Lakshmi;who is fit to be
contemplated through penance and sacrifice, who fondles Rukmani and his other consorts and
who is worshipped by the gopis, and who is decked with jewels radiating splendour.”
The Shlokas read in the reverse relate an adventure of
Shri Krishna. All 30 shlokas are in this form. Anuloma-
viloma means up and down

This experiment was conducted by an Italian
naturalist, who was the first to challenge the theory of
_____ ______. Name the naturalist and FITB
31

Spontaneous Generation(abiogenesis will get you
points)
Francesco Redi

Ishtraq was an adult magazine published in Pakistan in
1976 that contained political articles, a sexual advice
column, quasi-explicit short stories, and images picked up
from Playboy and Penthouse photo shoots. The magazine
was banned by the Bhutto regime in 1977.
The magazine’s licence was renewed in late 1978 by the
reactionary Ziaul Haq dictatorship, but operated as a a
social lifestyle monthly. The mag was banned again in
1979 when it ran a completely apolitical story about a
journalist’s experience of going to buy a goat, check its
teeth for age(requirement of Qurbani) for that year’s
Eidul Azha.
What was the reason for the ban?
32

Zia’s Information Ministry claimed that the story was
a taunt against Ziaul Haq’s teeth!

The Philemon Foundation was named for a figure that
appeared to ____ in a dream in 1913. In Memories,
Dreams, Reflections, ___recounted the dream in which
Philemon first appeared to him. ____ saw a sea blue sky,
covered by brown clods of earth that appeared to be
breaking apart. Out of the blue, he saw an old man with
kingfisher wings and the horns of a bull flying across the
sky, carrying a bunch of keys. After the dream, __ painted
the image, as he did not understand it. During this intense
period, ___ was struck by the synchronicity of finding a
dead kingfisher, a bird rarely seen around Zurich, in his
garden by the lakeshore. Thereafter, Philemon played an
important role in ___’s fantasies. (the picture shows
Philemon, if it helps).
33

_________(10 letter) is the process whereby two or
more independent cultural systems, or elements
thereof, conjoin to form a new and distinct system—is
among the most important factors in the evolution of
culture in general, but especially in the history of
religion. But the process occurs whenever previously
independent belief systems come into sustained
contact, no matter what their respective levels of
sophistication may be.
34

The History of Ideas Quiz 2015

The History of Ideas Quiz 2015

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