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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 explain the differences between the conditions of Western women from that of children?
(a) Because of the voting privilege of Western societies, the opinions of women must be taken more seriously than children.
(b) Children have no instrument to attack the civilization which oppresses them, but women have their charm and guile.
(c) Western women have left the life of children to accept the serious life.
(d) The condition of children are forced upon them, but women choose their condition.

2. What is the point at which existentialism is opposed to dialectic materialism according to Beauvoir?
(a) Where subjectivity and objectivity become equally determined by the revolt of the proletariat.
(b) When the proletariat universally works to eliminate its class.
(c) Where intellectual and bourgeois revolutions are considered suspiciously by the proletariat.
(d) Where revolt, need, hope, rejection, and desire are only the resultants of external forces.

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

4. According to Beauvoir, if every man is free:
(a) He is free to oppress the freedom of others.
(b) He cannot will himself free.
(c) His will must remain free.
(d) He must work to free other men.

5. What does Beauvoir state is the goal at which her freedom aims?
(a) "Seeing the doors of defeat before initiating and act."
(b) "Rejecting the verdicts of doubters and seeing the possibility of achieving ends through obstacles."
(c) "...(C)onquering existence across the always inadequate density of being."
(d) "Understanding the difference between delusion, denial, and stone pounding to affirm true existence."

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Beauvoir accuse Marxists of accepting moral superiority?

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

3. What example did Beauvoir use to show how those who fight for a cause will come to accept certain contradictions.

4. How does Beauvoir establish the relationship between things and man in human action?

5. What does Beauvoir claim can come to people who are filled with the horror of defeat?

(see the answer key)

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