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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 4-5, The Present and the Future, Ambiguity and Conclusion.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the paradox with which Beauvoir closes Chapter One?
(a) 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."
(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) Man is a being that, "in order to know the existence of achievement he must face the nothingness of failure."

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

3. How does Beauvoir claim a goal is defined?
(a) It is defined by the benefits it provides to those who seek it.
(b) It is defined along the road which leads to it.
(c) It is defined by the motivations of those who form the goal.
(d) It is defined by its transcendence.

4. What does Beauvoir mean when she refers to "The Antinomies of Action"?
(a) That improper actions against oppression will lead to more oppression.
(b) That actions, not words, are most effective against oppression.
(c) That often in the fight for or against oppression, the action contradicts the motivation.
(d) That the intentions of the those who act against oppression must be constantly in check.

5. What are the two clans that Beauvoir claims to come from oppression?
(a) Those who enlighten mankind by thrusting it ahead of itself, and those who are condemned to mark time hopelessly.
(b) The oppressors and the oppressed.
(c) Those who escape into their aesthetic only to allow their oppressive ideas to penetrate reality and subject the freedom of others to mechanically toil to satisfy their needs.
(d) Those who believe their status allows them the freedom to oppress and those whose freedom is taken for the benefit of those of status.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the meaning that Beauvoir gives to Festivals?

2. Since human life is finite, with what does Beauvoir suggest the individual should concern himself?

3. What does Beauvoir recognize as the paradox that faces a man who is willing to fight for a valid cause?

4. What is a principle that Beauvoir states that an ethics of ambiguity will refuse to deny a priori?

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

(see the answer key)

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