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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 1, Ambiguity and Freedom.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Beauvoir claim that a spontaneous action, or flight, can be converted into will?
(a) By accepting the consequences of the spontaneous act.
(b) By assuming the project positively.
(c) By evaluating the usefulness of the spontaneous act.
(d) By recognizing the effects of the spontaneous act on the physical world.

2. What role does time play what Beauvoir identifies as the ability to will oneself free?
(a) Time allows the accumulation of spontaneous acts to define their direction.
(b) The goal of freedom is pursued and confirmed in time.
(c) The individual uses time to manipulate the physical world to exercise his freedom.
(d) Time is required for the individual to understand that he is free.

3. What is the paradox with which Beauvoir closes Chapter One?
(a) Man is a being that, "in order to know the existence of achievement he must face the nothingness of failure."
(b) "Man cannot know existence without first knowing his nothingness."
(c) Man as an individual is, "At once alone in himself which makes up the mass of universality."
(d) In order to fill his existence, man must assume himself as a being who, "makes himself a lack of being so that there might be being."

4. According to Beauvoir, what is the goal of dualist teachings to their disciples?
(a) To see the physical life as ambiguous.
(b) To eliminate ambiguity from the after life.
(c) To escape ambiguity.
(d) To eliminate ambiguity from extraterrestrial life.

5. Beauvoir claims that dualists use their basic belief to establish what idea?
(a) To diminish the part of the self that cannot be saved.
(b) To seek to find life on other planets.
(c) To guide their adherents to prepare exclusively for the after life.
(d) To embrace nihilism.

Short Answer Questions

1. At what point does Beauvoir claim an individual has the ability to decide and choose?

2. By quoting Dostoyevsky ("If God does not exist, then everything is permitted"), what examination does Beauvoir make?

3. What claim of existentialists does Beauvoir offer in defense of detractors to existentialism?

4. How does Beauvoir explain what Descartes meant when he said that the freedom of man is infinite, but this power is limited?

5. What does Beauvoir report to the the qualities of God that establishes moral standards?

(see the answer key)

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