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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. How does Beauvoir define materialist philosophers?
(a) Those who have "striven to reduce mind to matter".
(b) Those who see "no value in thought".
(c) Those who "see no life after this one".
(d) Those who "conceive all matter as eternal".

2. What type of man does Beauvoir identify as being nihilistic?
(a) The point at which the serious man realizes the pursuit of his goals have been made at the expense of his freedom.
(b) When a man who faces failure becomes conscious of being unable to be anything and decides to be nothing.
(c) The man who disputes the seriousness of another man's goals to the point that his goals are regarded as generally useless as a consequence.
(d) The man who sees the futility of his goals and realizes he has missed the benefits of his ambiguity.

3. Upon what does Beauvoir claim that a child's freedom is based?
(a) Upon adults whom he is only to respect and obey.
(b) Upon his willingness to trust adults without question.
(c) Upon his inability to grasp the concept of cause and effect.
(d) Upon ignorance that makes all his decisions meaningless.

4. What explanation does Beauvoir give to assert that existentialist thought helps to build community.
(a) Beauvoir asserts, "Despite their disparate views, existentialists easily welcome any detractor because they only see them as creations of their own minds."
(b) Beauvoir asserts, "Existentialists, with their dogmatic adherence to solipsism, help to rally a wide range of theorists to disprove their irrationality."
(c) Beauvoir asserts, "...existentialism,...(is) the plurality of concrete particular men projecting themselves toward their ends on the basis of situations whose particularity is as radical and irreducible as subjectivity.
(d) Beauvoir asserts, "Existentialists are more often inviting of debate since they do not consider any idea as wrong because they accept no idea as right."

5. How does Beauvoir claim that the child develops the conviction of good and evil?
(a) Through joy and disappointment.
(b) Through punishments, prizes, words of praise or blame.
(c) Through observation and learning.
(d) Through pain and healing.

Short Answer Questions

1. What are projects according to Beauvoir?

2. What does Beauvoir identify as the worst thing to be said for violence?

3. According to Beauvoir, what is the goal of dualist teachings to their disciples?

4. What is a principle that Beauvoir states that an ethics of ambiguity will refuse to deny a priori?

5. What does Beauvoir suggest becomes the intellectual responsibility of existentialists who reject God?

(see the answer key)

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