Discourse On the Origin of Inequality Quizzes

Discourse On the Origin of Inequality Quiz

1 What city was Rousseau born in?

Geneva

Zurich

Paris

London
2 What religion was Rousseau?

Catholic—converted from Lutheranism

Buddhist

Atheist

Lutheran—converted from Catholicism
3 Which discipline did Rousseau NOT pursue?

Philosophy

Literature

Astronomy

Music
4 Which city in France sponsored the essay contest to which Rousseau submitted the Second Discourse?

Dijon

Paris

Lyon

London
5 What was the winning argument?

All human beings are equal in their own way.

Inequality is artificially created by the state.

Inequality is produced by the division of labor.

Inequality is created by God.
6 What sort of inequality exists in the state of nature?

Differences in physical attractiveness.

Physical inequality, like strength.

Differences of facility for language.

There was no inequality.
7 How does Rousseau know what the state of nature was like?

Based on recent archaeological discoveries in the Eighteenth Century.

He is relying on historical texts.

He doesn't. He's engaging a speculation that he hopes will clarify contemporary social relations.

He is relying on religious texts.
8 Which of these thinkers was not part of the French Enlightenment?

Montesqieu

G.W.F. Hegel

Voltaire

Diderot
9 What historical event was immediately influenced by the Discourse on Inequality?

The Copernican Revolution

The French Revolution

The English Revolution

The Cuban Revolution
10 Which political thinker was influenced by Rousseau?

Julius Caeser

Oliver Cromwell

Maximilian Robespierre

Mao Zedong
11 How do Rousseau's views on the state of nature differ from those of Thomas Hobbes?

Rousseau believes that man is naturally good.

Like Pufendorf, Rousseau believes that man is naturally cowardly.

There is no difference. Rousseau agrees that man is naturally evil.

Rousseau believes that man was neither good nor evil by nature, since both virtue and vice are social concepts.
12 How did man fill his days in the state of nature?

He contemplated the existence of God.

He set about making tools for himself.

He developed the first, rudimentary philosophical concepts.

He was concerned only with his own immediate sensual needs.
13 How is man different from animals?

Man is born smarter than animals.

There is no difference, man is an animal through and through.

Man has a soul.

Man possess self-perfectibility.
14 How did language come into being?

It naturally emerged from the collective nature of human life.

It naturally developed from man's superior brainpower.

Through shouts and cries, which arouse pity.

Language is an innate faculty of the human mind.
15 What were the first words like, according to Rousseau?

They were only proper names for each individual object, since man had no concept of general ideas.

Language emerged more or less fully developed.

They followed a natural grammar.

They were general, since man's experience was very narrow.
16 How is pity different in the state of nature than it is in civilization?

Nature was pitiless, civilization taught people to care for one another.

There is no difference, art is rooted in the sentiment of pity.

In civilization, we weep at plays but not at the suffering of fellow human beings.

Civilization makes people hard and pitiless.
17 How did love function in the state of nature?

Human beings regularly gathered for orgies, then dispersed.

Human beings were naturally attached to one another.

There was no love, since human beings did not spend enough time with one another to grow attached.

Human beings grew attached to one another, which resulted in jealous conflicts.
18 What sort of competition existed between people in the state of nature?

The weak used their intelligence to steal the food that the strong gathered for themselves.

None, since human beings did not spend sufficient time around one another to be jealous of each other.

Without laws to hold them back, human beings fought violently with one another.

Without the materialism of society, human beings worked together cooperatively.
19 What critique did Karl Marx have of Rousseau's conception of nature?

He argued that Rousseau's view of history was too influenced by Christianity.

He felt that Rousseau was not radical enough in his critique of private property.

He accused Rousseau of projecting the individual, who Marx argued was a modern construction, back into a fictional past.

None. Marx agreed fundamentally with the Rousseau's critique of inequality.
20 Which Marxist philosopher argued that the Discourse on Inequality was fundamentally a work of fiction?

Walter Benjamin

Jacques Ranciere

Theodor Adorno

Louis Althusser
21 Why was the state of nature not more dangerous than civilization?

It was, in fact, more dangerous.

Civilization protects people, but it also gives them cause to harm one another.

People in the state of nature had a closer relationship to God.

People in the state of nature were naturally virtuous.
22 What reception did the Second Discourse have among the philosophers of Rousseau's time?

Largely negative—no one understood why anyone would write a philosophical work arguing that philosophy was bad.

Extremely negative—the Catholic Church organized burnings of the text.

Largely positive—his readers agreed that he exposed monarchy as illegitimate.

Indifferent. The Second Discourse wasn't widely read until the twentieth century.
23 Which German playwright was influenced by the importance that Rousseau placed on pity and the sight of human suffering?

Heiner Muller

Bertolt Brecht

Heinrich von Kleist

G.E. Lessing
24 What were the first associations between people like?

Religious. People first gathered into communities of similar faith.

They were practical. People came together to hunt deer, gather food, etc.

National. People first gathered among people who spoke the same language that they did.

They were forms of mutual protection, so that each could protect his private property.
25 What is the origin of the family?

Mutual self-interest.

Nature—the family is a natural structure, rooted in care for the weak.

God, who determined woman to be man's helper.

From common habitation, which began with the sharing of huts.

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