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

2. In the face of emerging violence of man's growing mastery of the world, what does Beauvoir suggest to individuals who seek to navigate it?
(a) To assume and know the condition of our fundamental ambiguity.
(b) To accept the insignificance of the individual as a means of embracing individual ambiguity.
(c) To seek to understand God's role in the growing environment of violence.
(d) To discontinue to attempt to keep up with the changes going on in the world.

3. How does Beauvoir claim that Marxists consider man's actions to be valid?
(a) Only if the actions support the revolution of the proletariat.
(b) Only if the actions are in opposition of the bourgeois.
(c) Only if the man has not helped initiate his action by an internal movement or through free will.
(d) Only if the actions eliminate private property.

4. What claim of existentialists does Beauvoir offer in defense of detractors to existentialism?
(a) Bouvoir claims that existentialists offer their detractors important challenges to prove their theories.
(b) Bouvoir claims that existentialists believe that the world is willed by man, insofar as his will expresses his genuine reality.
(c) Bouvoir claims that existentialists help to accentuate the strengths of other theories.
(d) Bouvoir claims that existentialists give focus to the importance of matter in reality.

5. How does Beauvoir suggest a past accomplishment can be made relevant in the present?
(a) By tracing the affects of the act from the past through to the present.
(b) By keeping a record of all accomplishments to reflect upon those experiences with every decision.
(c) By ceaselessly returning to it and justify it as part of the project with which the individual is currently involved.
(d) By comparing present acts to the acts of the past.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. How does Beauvoir explain that Marxists perceive that acts can be regarded as good or bad?

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

4. Who does Beauvoir use as an example of moving through such obstacles?

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

(see the answer key)

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