Deck 14: The Existentialist: Søren Kierkegaard

Question 1

Nietzsche wrote that the most pressing question for scholars was to what end their work was useful.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Søren Kierkegaard lived with a sense of despair.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Kierkegaard always wrote under his own name.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Kierkegaard was interested in what it means to be a Christian.

Question 5

Heschel believed that technological progress creates more problems than it solves.

Question 6

Kierkegaard said that the question is "what am I to do?"

Question 7

"Afham" means "not by him."

Question 8

Stumpf claimed that existentialism was a freak occurrence.

Question 9

Michael Kierkegaard, Søren's father, never forgave himself for cursing God.

Question 10

"N.N." is a Danish abbreviation indicating anonymity.

Question 11

Kierkegaard's work was well-known in his lifetime.

Question 12

Kierkegaard married Regine Olsen.

Question 13

Kierkegaard wrote Neither/Or .

Question 14

If he had to ask for an inscription on his grave, Kierkegaard would ask for it to be "the individual."

Question 15

Existentialist themes include choice, freedom, and identity.

Question 16

Kierkegaard claimed that "truth is objectivity."

Question 17

Kierkegaard wrote in Dutch.

Question 18

Kierkegaard wrote a thesis on Socratic irony.

Question 19

Kierkegaard rebelled against "the system."

Question 20

Climacus denies he is a Christian.

Question 21

How many stages on "life's way" did Kierkegaard identify?

A) 3
B) 5
C) 7
D) 9

Question 22

A Janus bifrons weeps with one face and laughs with the other.

Question 23

Kierkegaard's ethical man is the

A) Prisoner
B) Priest
C) Judge
D) Gentleman

Question 24

Kierkegaard considered objectivity to be a dangerous illusion.

Question 25

Kierkegaard held that objectivity was difficult.

Question 26

"A" was expressly

A) a theologian
B) an aesthete
C) a philosopher
D) an agnostic

Question 27

The aesthetic stage is characterized by the pursuit of

A) pleasure
B) love
C) beauty
D) wisdom

Question 28

Kierkegaard embraced group salvation.

Question 29

Kierkegaard published three attacks on the Danish Church.

Question 30

The ethical stage involves a commitment to

A) beauty
B) wisdom
C) customs of the individual
D) customs of society

Question 31

Kierkegaard held that becoming a subject was possible for anyone, theist or atheist.

Question 32

What Enlightenment notion did Kierkegaard believe resulted in despair?

A) God
B) Reason
C) Truth
D) Autonomy

Question 33

Misterlich claimed that mass society creates an army of rival siblings.

Question 34

The aesthetic stage on life's way is

A) moral
B) amoral
C) immoral
D) Godly

Question 35

Will Durant claimed that our culture today is superficial.

Question 36

Against Kant, Kierkegaard held that man could never be his own

A) teacher
B) judge
C) lawgiver
D) guide

Question 37

Don Juan was a legendary

A) seducer
B) theist
C) philosopher
D) mobster

Question 38

The ethical man or woman is

A) wicked
B) earnest
C) livid
D) practical

Question 39

Solzhenitsyn claimed that we err as that is more comfortable.

Question 40

Kierkegaard died in 1955.

Question 41

The only perspective from which Abraham did something that was not absurd when he chose to obey the demand to sacrifice his son is that of

A) reason
B) truth
C) wisdom
D) faith

Question 42

The term used to refer to any philosophy that emphasizes questions of meaning and choice as they affect existing individuals is

A) agnosticism
B) determinism
C) compatibilism
D) existentialism

Question 43

How do (a) happiness and (b) eudaimonia  feature in Kierkegaard's approach to the question of how to live?

Question 44

What does it mean to live an authentic life? Would such a life necessarily be a happy one? Why or why not? Explain your answer.

Question 45

Descartes had reduced existence to

A) believing
B) pleasure
C) egoism
D) religion

Question 46

Johannes Climacus is named after

A) a Greek philosopher
B) a Greek monk
C) a German writer
D) a German journalism

Question 47

How is the methodological approach of existentialism similar to that of Marxist philosophy? Explain your answer.

Question 48

What does Kierkegaard mean by a "leap of faith"? Would such a thing be easy to do?

Question 49

To be subjective, for Kierkegaard, is to become a subject

A) of thought
B) in truth
C) in name only
D) by association

Question 50

What is perhaps the most major existential issue?

A) What am I to do?
B) How is one to live?
C) What is right for us?
D) What is society's future?

Question 51

Leveling is, for Kierkegaard,

A) the road to objectivity
B) a reduction to mediocrity
C) the Way
D) the Path

Question 52

Kierkegaard wanted to pass from fragmentation to

A) society
B) faith
C) integration
D) seclusion

Question 53

What, for Kierkegaard, are the different Ways of Life, and how are they related?

Question 54

For Kierkegaard, what blinds us to existence?

A) Knowledge
B) Faith
C) Subjectivity
D) Detachment

Question 55

What is Latin for "from a distance"?

A) Prequel
B) Raquel
C) Procul
D) Requiem

Question 56

What is "the system" according to Kierkegaard?

A) a lie
B) the Way
C) the truth
D) wisdom

Question 57

For Kierkegaard the ethical is the

A) absurd
B) egoistic
C) rational
D) universal

Question 58

Existence is

A) cool
B) detached
C) concrete
D) impersonal

Question 59

What is the condition that results when the nature and needs of the individual are denied for the group?

A) Authenticity
B) Inauthenticity
C) Faith
D) Reason

Question 60

At what age did Kierkegaard die?

A) 42
B) 27
C) 54
D) 76

Question 61

What are the main points of difference between the views of Descartes and Kierkegaard? Illustrate your answer with examples.

Question 62

How does Kierkegaard understand subjectivity?

Question 63

What is Kierkegaard's conception of truth?