Deck 14: Existentialism

Question 1

Philosophers regard __________ as the father of modern existentialism.

A) Sartre
B) Nietzsche
C) Kierkegaard
D) Heidegger

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Philosophers regard __________ as the last great existentialist thinker.

A) Sartre
B) Nietzsche
C) Kierkegaard
D) Heidegger

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Existentialism focuses on ultimate questions concerning __________.

A) metaphysics
B) abstract truths
C) how to live
D) scientific objectivity

Answer 3

C

Question 4

All but __________ are main existentialist themes.

A) individualism and subjectivity
B) freedom and responsibility
C) epistemology and metaphysics
D) anguish and absurdity

Question 5

Fideism is the notion that religious belief is grounded in __________.

A) reason, not sense experience
B) faith, not reason
C) sense experience, not reason
D) faith, not sense experience

Question 6

Kierkegaard laments that society has replaced individuals with __________.

A) religious devotion
B) workers
C) people who have "forgotten what it means to exist"
D) "automatons"

Question 7

According to Kierkegaard, the __________ is the opposite of the individual.

A) church
B) crowd
C) factory
D) parliament

Question 8

Kierkegaard wants to replace the "what" of what is believed with the__________ of what is believed.

A) "when"
B) "where"
C) "how"
D) "why"

Question 9

Kierkegaard claims that __________ is the truth.

A) subjectivity
B) objectivity
C) relativism
D) absolutism

Question 10

The will to power is, according to Nietzsche, the fundamental __________.

A) drive to succeed in life
B) nature of existence as a drive to control and dominate
C) nature of the animal world
D) principle of divinity

Question 11

Nietzsche thinks that all human struggle is a reflection of __________.

A) master morality
B) slave morality
C) the will to power
D) the overman

Question 12

Nietzsche thinks Christianity is an example of __________.

A) master morality
B) slave morality
C) the will to power
D) the overman

Question 13

Both master and slave moralists define themselves as __________.

A) good
B) evil
C) true
D) religious

Question 14

In Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche describes the overman as the __________.

A) future of slave morality
B) religious leader
C) leader of master morality
D) future of mortal human life

Question 15

When Nietzsche asserts, "God is dead," he means that __________.

A) belief in the Christian God is untenable
B) slave morality is over
C) God has been killed off by shrinking church membership
D) master morality is over

Question 16

For __________, the question of being is a question of existence itself.

A) Kierkegaard
B) Nietzsche
C) Heidegger
D) Sartre

Question 17

Throughout his career Heidegger was consumed by the question of __________.

A) time
B) being
C) God's existence
D) the meaning of life

Question 18

__________ is Heidegger's central concept in the discussion of being.

A) Projection
B) Fallenness
C) Dasein
D) Authenticity

Question 19

Heidegger asserts Dasein "is __________."

A) the being for which being is an issue
B) synonymous with the individual
C) humanity
D) consciousness

Question 20

All but __________ are fundamental aspects of Dasein.

A) thrownness
B) authenticity
C) projection
D) fallenness

Question 21

When Sartre asserts that "essence precedes existence", he means that humans __________.

A) have an essence realized through their choices
B) have no essence to realize
C) do not initially understand their essence
D) reject the idea that they have an essence

Question 22

Sartre claims that human beings are __________.

A) superficially free
B) at least sometimes free
C) nominally free
D) radically free

Question 23

Sartre asserts, "We are condemned to __________."

A) suffer
B) be free
C) our fate
D) die

Question 24

Sartre is a proponent of __________.

A) theistic existentialism
B) theistic phenomenology
C) atheistic existentialism
D) atheistic phenomenology

Question 25

Sartre declares the first principle of existentialism is, "Man is nothing else but what __________."

A) he makes of himself
B) he has been blessed with by God
C) society constructs of him
D) he can gain from others

Question 26

According to Sartre, anguish is the realization __________.

A) of one's "total indebtedness to God"
B) of one's "total and deep responsibility"
C) of one's "total commitment to faith"
D) that "God is dead"

Question 27

According to Sartre, the existentialist "thinks it very distressing that God __________."

A) exists
B) does not exist
C) creates morality
D) does not create morality

Question 28

Sartre thinks our freedom means we have no __________.

A) knowledge
B) direction
C) happiness
D) excuses

Question 29

In existentialism, absurdity is a sense of meaningless and irrationality in the world arising from __________.

A) our freedom
B) the conflict between our need for meaning and an indifferent universe
C) abandonment by God
D) secularism

Question 30

The opposite of living authentically is to act __________.

A) immorally
B) in anguish
C) in bad faith
D) unseriously

Question 31

According to Kierkegaard, Christian belief is absurd.

Question 32

Kierkegaard asserts that all truth is objective.

Question 33

Nietzsche asserts that "the crowd is the untruth."

Question 34

In existentialism, absurdity is synonymous with a logical contradiction.

Question 35

Kierkegaard is a fideist.

Question 36

According to Kierkegaard, any attempt to make religion conform to reason is doomed to fail.

Question 37

According to existentialism, people live authentically when they accept their freedom and responsibility and recognize that they alone are the designers of their lives.

Question 38

Existentialism offers rules and principles that show us how to live a moral life.

Question 39

Anguish and absurdity are central existentialist themes.

Question 40

Kierkegaard declares that "existence precedes essence."

Question 41

The heart of existentialism is its emphasis on the freedom of the individual.

Question 42

The existentialist emphasis on subjectivity reveals that all existentialists are moral relativists.

Question 43

Kierkegaard bemoans a lack of reason in society.

Question 44

Sartre thinks the response to our existential condition is "anguish, forlornness, despair."

Question 45

Nietzsche equates master morality with Christianity.

Question 46

Nietzsche argues that Christians associate goodness with characteristics such as sympathy and kindness.

Question 47

Nietzsche argues that slave morality is not life-affirming.

Question 48

Sartre asserts that "We are condemned to be free" because we have killed God.

Question 49

Camus argues that we should embrace the absurdity of life.

Question 50

Nietzsche associates the will to power with affirming life.