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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Beauvoir claim comes of the man who does not use his the necessary instruments to escape the lie of his serious life that prevents his freedom?
(a) He slips back into the defined existence of a child.
(b) He is no longer a man, but a father, a boss, a member of the Christian Church or the Communist party.
(c) He becomes a "sub-man" who has no more purpose in existing than pebbles or trees.
(d) He is condemned to living a life in which all his ethics, morality, and decisions are made for him.

2. Who does Beauvoir use as an example of moving through such obstacles?
(a) Vincent Van Gogh.
(b) Hitler.
(c) Sisyphus.
(d) Adalai Stevenson.

3. What quote from Lenin does Beauvoir use to demonstrate the Marxist revolution has human meaning?
(a) "The entire purpose of training, educating and teaching the youth of today should be to imbue them with communist ethics."
(b) "Our action only has meaning if it brings down the influence of the bourgeois."
(c) "We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the proletariat's class struggle."
(d) "I call any action useful to the party moral action; I call it immoral if it is harmful to the party."

4. 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 nothing more than a creation in the mind of God.
(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.

5. How does Beauvoir suggest that a child console himself when confronted with personal imperfection?
(a) By blaming his problem on another child.
(b) By denying the flaw and moving to his next goal.
(c) By holding to ignorance so as not to have to explain his predicament.
(d) By pinning his hopes on the future.

Short Answer Questions

1. Beauvoir claims that dualists use their basic belief to establish what idea?

2. What relationship does Beauvoir identify between ethics and facticity?

3. How does Beauvoir define nihilism?

4. What does Beauvoir claim matters to the serious man?

5. What type of man does Beauvoir identify as being nihilistic?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Beauvoir explain that willing bad is possible?

2. How does Beauvoir claim that the truly free will is produced?

3. How does Beauvoir define the serious man?

4. To what does Beauvoir credit the development of many different philosophical world views?

5. According to Beauvoir, how have existentialists defined their philosophy?

6. How does Beauvoir define the child's world?

7. How does Beauvoir claim that spontaneity affects man's freedom?

8. How does Beauvoir claim one can avoid nihilism?

9. How does Beauvoir claim that man can find truth in his life?

10. What does Beauvoir detail as the consequences of failure to the serious man?

(see the answer keys)

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