View a FREE sample

This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What are projects according to Beauvoir?
(a) Activities which define history.
(b) Activities in which the individual works toward a goal.
(c) Activities in which the individual sacrifices freedom for achievement.
(d) Activities in which an individual works to affect others.

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

3. How does Beauvoir claim that the individual with the Aesthetic Attitude regard his role in history?
(a) He considers history to have no affect on his Aesthetic Attitude.
(b) He considers his thoughts to form the existential material of history.
(c) He considers himself outside of time, and does not belong to history.
(d) He considers his will to remain free to be the driving force of history.

4. For whom do Beauvoir and Marx agree that the cause of freedom is most urgent?
(a) Women who are unaware of the subjugation to men.
(b) The unenlightened who does not realize their exploitation.
(c) To the oppressed that it appears as immediately necessary.
(d) The proletariat who is controlled by the bourgeois.

5. How does Beauvoir illustrate her example proves her point that, "festivals stop the movement of transcendence?"
(a) The festival regarding the liberation of Paris allowed people to temporarily ignore the coming difficulties that were to come to their post-war society.
(b) Throughout history empires leave the discipline that made their systems transcendent for the pleasures found during festivals.
(c) Pagans who adopt Christian labels for the celebrations are starting the process of renouncing their paganism.
(d) Christians allow the influences of pagan observances to obscure the principles of the Bible.

6. How does Beauvoir define the present?
(a) The present is the point at which the will meets freedom.
(b) The present is the moment in which thought meets matter.
(c) The present is when the Aesthetic Attitude meets its most significant challenge.
(d) The present is not a potential past, it is the moment of choice and action.

7. What does Beauvoir claim to be the meaning and substance of all action?
(a) Ambiguity.
(b) Existentialism.
(c) The future.
(d) Freedom.

8. For whom do Beauvoir and Marx agree that the cause of freedom is most urgent?
(a) To the oppressed that it appears as immediately necessary.
(b) The unenlightened who does not realize their exploitation.
(c) The proletariat who is controlled by the bourgeois.
(d) Women who are unaware of the subjugation to men.

9. What possibility does Beauvoir claim the fundamental ambiguity of the human condition opens to men?
(a) The choice of being and lack of being.
(b) The choice of existentialism over materialism.
(c) The choice of freedom over oppression.
(d) The possibility of opposing choices.

10. In what way does Beauvoir claim that "The Ethics of Ambiguity" is individualistic?
(a) It accords the individual absolute value and recognizes him as the power of laying the foundations of his own existence.
(b) By allowing the individual to withdraw from social life to gain moral perspective.
(c) It provides the individual the reasoning to choose between being free or being serious.
(d) In that it comes to the individual to choose to follow them.

11. At what point does Beauvoir declare the death of an individual is not a failure?
(a) If his death leads to the victory of his cause.
(b) When it is integrated into a project which surpasses the limits of life.
(c) If the cause for which he died is carried on by his survivors.
(d) When the cause for which he died preserves freedom for all.

12. What three considerations an individual make before acting are abstract, according to Beauvoir?
(a) Is the action possible, is it future-oriented, will it affect the self.
(b) Is the action ambiguous, is it mental, is it physical.
(c) Is the action practical, is it good, is it bad.
(d) Does the action lead to a goal, is it transcendent, will it affect the self.

13. How does Beauvoir illustrate how ambiguity affected Christianity?
(a) She illustrated that the Reformation challenged the seriousness of the Catholic Church with the Christian Spirit.
(b) She showed how interpretation of scripture was replaced by researching scripture.
(c) She showed how poverty allowed a break from salvation through indulgences.
(d) She showed how works bound to the dead law were replaced with faith and charity.

14. What knowledge comes to the man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires and real will according to Beauvoir?
(a) He has reached transcendence.
(b) He knows freedom.
(c) He has grasped his ambiguity.
(d) He has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals.

15. How does Beauvoir suggest an individual can find tranquility of the serious?
(a) By considering their projects to be divinely inspired so their seriousness has eternal significance.
(b) By projecting himself toward a Future-Thing and submerge their freedom it it.
(c) By rejecting the sloppy thinking that the present oppression will vanish on its own.
(d) By occupying their present only with serious matter.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Beauvoir define the Aesthetic Attitude?

2. What comes of the man of action who does not recognize the ambiguity that appears during the pursuit of his goal, according to Beauvoir?

3. What is the future that Beauvoir sees for herself?

4. According to Beauvoir, what stops an individual's life from appearing as a negligible thing?

5. What example does Beauvoir use to illustrate "...festivals (that) stop the movement of transcendence?"

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,134 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample