This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 3, The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity, Sections 1-3, The Aesthetic Attitude, Freedom and Liberation, The Antinomies of Action.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the illustration Beauvoir uses to prove her assertion of stubbornness in the face of impossibility?
(a) Beating her fist upon a stone.
(b) The development of the airplane.
(c) The deaths that preceded the first successful climb of Mt. Everest.
(d) The sapling that grows through a sidewalk.

2. How does Beauvoir establish the relationship between things and man in human action?
(a) Things validate the actions of man through being the products of projects of man.
(b) This sustain the actions of man by presenting themselves as obstacles.
(c) Things remain through history after the actions of man bring them to reality.
(d) Things are the result of the actions of man and help man transcend time and space.

3. How does Beauvoir explain what Descartes meant when he said that the freedom of man is infinite, but this power is limited?
(a) That man is free to believe all things, but achieving them is subject to the physical universe.
(b) That man's mind has no limits in thought, but his physical body does not have the ability to follow the thoughts.
(c) The individual man has the power to follow his desires until his pursuit is obstructed by a more power man.
(d) That the will is defined only by raising obstacles and by the contingency of certain obstacles that let themselves be conquered and others that do not.

4. According to Beauvoir, if every man is free:
(a) He is free to oppress the freedom of others.
(b) His will must remain free.
(c) He must work to free other men.
(d) He cannot will himself free.

5. Why does Beauvoir claim that no project can be considered to be purely contemplative?
(a) Because a project requires putting action to contemplation.
(b) Because an individual is continually projects himself toward something in the future through a project.
(c) Because projects are contemplated differently by others who act differently from their perspectives.
(d) Because projects are contemplated in the present to be completed in the future and become part of the past.