27 Philosophy Trivia Questions for Kids
The easiest philosophy questions in the game, picked for younger players. Every one comes with the answer and a short explanation of why it is right.
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Easy Philosophy Questions and Answers
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Which fallacy dismisses a claim by attacking the person making it rather than addressing the claim?
Ad hominem
An ad hominem rejects a claim by going after whoever made it instead of the claim itself. The name is Latin for "to the person".
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Whose teachings are recorded in the Analects?
Confucius
The Analects, or Lunyu, records conversations and teachings associated with Confucius and his disciples. It became a foundational text of Confucian philosophy.
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What ethical principle calls for moderation between extremes?
Golden mean
Aristotle’s golden mean describes virtue as a balanced position between extremes.
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Which philosopher developed the classical theory of the syllogism?
Aristotle
Aristotle developed the classical theory of the syllogism, a form of argument involving premises and a conclusion, in works later known as the Organon.
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Who wrote Confessions, a famous work of late-antique philosophy and theology?
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine wrote Confessions as an autobiographical spiritual and philosophical work.
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Which fallacy occurs when an argument assumes the conclusion it is supposed to prove?
Begging the question
Begging the question occurs when an argument assumes its conclusion instead of independently proving it, creating circular reasoning. The phrase originally meant “assuming the point at issue,” rather than simply raising a question.
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Which philosopher founded classical utilitarianism?
Jeremy Bentham
Bentham formulated utilitarianism around maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.
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Which thinker is traditionally associated with the Daodejing?
Laozi
The Daodejing is traditionally associated with Laozi and is a foundational text of Daoist philosophy. Its authorship and historical composition are subjects of scholarly discussion.
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Which branch of philosophy studies knowledge and justified belief?
Epistemology
The name comes from the Greek word episteme, meaning knowledge. In a famous 1963 paper, Edmund Gettier showed that a belief can be both justified and true and still fail to count as knowledge, a puzzle that unsettled a definition philosophers had relied on since antiquity.
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What philosophical issue asks whether people can genuinely choose if every event is determined by prior causes?
Free will
Free will is the philosophical question of whether people can genuinely choose and control their actions if every event is caused by what came before. Some philosophers, called compatibilists, argue that free will can still exist even in a determined universe.
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What ethical principle asks people to treat others as they would want to be treated?
Golden Rule
The Golden Rule teaches people to treat others as they would want to be treated themselves. Similar versions of this principle appear in many religious and philosophical traditions.
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Who wrote Leviathan, a classic defense of a strong sovereign?
Thomas Hobbes
Hobbes's Leviathan argues for sovereign authority to secure peace from a state of nature.
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What phrase describes Kuhn's revolutionary change in scientific frameworks?
Paradigm shift
Kuhn describes scientific revolutions as shifts from one paradigm to another.
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What philosophical issue examines how thought relates to matter?
Mind-body problem
The mind-body problem asks how conscious experience, the felt redness of red, relates to the physical activity of a brain. Proposed answers run from Descartes' dualism, which treats mind and matter as two separate substances, to modern physicalism, which insists there is only the matter.
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Which medieval thinker is linked to the rule that unnecessary assumptions should be avoided?
William of Ockham
The principle that explanations should not multiply entities beyond necessity is known as Occam's razor, after William of Ockham, a 14th-century English Franciscan friar who argued that way repeatedly. He never wrote the sentence now quoted as the razor; that wording is a later summary, and Occam is simply the Latinised form of his Surrey village.
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What paradox arises from the sentence “This sentence is false”?
Liar paradox
The liar sentence appears true if false and false if true, producing a semantic paradox.
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What argument compares the practical stakes of believing or disbelieving in God?
Pascal's wager
Pascal's wager argues that expected practical consequences can favor belief under uncertainty.
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Which game-theory scenario shows how individually rational choices can lead to a worse result for both participants?
Prisoner's dilemma
The prisoner's dilemma shows that when each participant pursues their own best interest, both can end up worse off than if they had cooperated. The classic version involves two suspects who would each fare better if both stayed silent, yet each has an incentive to betray the other.
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What philosophical challenge examines whether divine attributes are compatible with worldly suffering?
Problem of evil
The problem of evil asks how an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God can coexist with the existence of evil and suffering. A classic version argues that these claims may be mutually inconsistent.
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Who wrote The Social Contract with its famous general will?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rousseau's Social Contract develops popular sovereignty and the general will.
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Which thought experiment asks whether an object remains the same thing after all its parts have been replaced?
Ship of Theseus
Plutarch records that the Athenians preserved Theseus's ship by replacing each plank as it rotted, which raises the question of whether what remained was still the same ship. Hobbes sharpened the puzzle by asking what would happen if the discarded planks were gathered up and reassembled into a second ship.
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Which feminist philosophical work was written by Simone de Beauvoir?
The Second Sex
Beauvoir's The Second Sex analyzes women's social construction and oppression.
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What fallacy attacks a weaker version of an opponent's argument instead of the argument actually made?
Straw man
A straw man fallacy misrepresents or weakens someone’s actual argument and then attacks that distorted version. The name evokes knocking down a straw figure instead of confronting the real opponent.
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The runaway trolley and the brain in a vat are examples of what?
A thought experiment
Albert Einstein used the German term Gedankenexperiment for these imagined scenarios, including picturing himself chasing a beam of light, a mental exercise that helped shape special relativity in 1905.
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Which thought experiment asks whether you should divert a runaway threat so that it kills one person instead of five?
Trolley problem
Philippa Foot set out the runaway tram case in 1967 and Judith Jarvis Thomson developed the variations that made it famous. It is used to test counting outcomes against the rule that you may not use one person as a means of saving others, which is why most people will pull a lever but refuse to push someone off a bridge.
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What uses conversation to judge whether a machine seems human?
Turing test
Alan Turing proposed it in a 1950 paper as 'the imitation game': a human judge holds text conversations with a person and a machine and tries to work out which is which.
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What ethical theory judges actions by their overall consequences for well-being?
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism evaluates actions by their consequences and seeks the greatest overall happiness or well-being.
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