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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. Beauvoir claims that critics of existentialism claim that it is solipsistic. What is solipsism?
(a) The theory that only the self (mind) exists or can be proven to exist.
(b) The theory that life is replicated on many planets in many worlds.
(c) The theory that only the physical life exists and matter is eternal.
(d) The theory that life is nothing more than a creation in the mind of God.

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

3. By quoting Dostoyevsky ("If God does not exist, then everything is permitted"), what examination does Beauvoir make?
(a) The role of a dualistic spiritual existence in directing passion.
(b) The role of an external moral code in extinguishing passions.
(c) The role of the physical world on the development of a moral code.
(d) The role of the existence of God in defining the existence of man and the world.

4. How does Beauvoir introduce the role of God in the discussion of ethics?
(a) By pointing out that all ethics end up being an effort to define God.
(b) By pointing out that Sartre's view of existentialism ends with man attempting to make himself God.
(c) By considering the endless pursuit of pure ethics and the failure to achieve such places the power of judgement in the hands of God.
(d) By suggesting the wide views of the nature of God actually makes God ambiguous.

5. What explanation does Beauvoir give to assert that existentialist thought helps to build community.
(a) 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."
(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, "Despite their disparate views, existentialists easily welcome any detractor because they only see them as creations of their own minds."

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What quote from Lenin does Beauvoir use to demonstrate the Marxist revolution has human meaning?

3. How does Beauvoir compare Marxism to existentialism?

4. What is the paradox with which Beauvoir closes Chapter One?

5. Although Beauvoir reports that existentialism defined itself as a philosophy of ambiguity, what does she claim to be existentialism's fundamental flaw?

(see the answer key)

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