Discourse On the Origin of Inequality Quizzes

Discourse On the Origin of Inequality Quiz

1 What city was Rousseau born in?
Paris

Geneva

London

Zurich
2 What religion was Rousseau?
Catholic—converted from Lutheranism

Buddhist

Lutheran—converted from Catholicism

Atheist
3 Which discipline did Rousseau NOT pursue?
Astronomy

Philosophy

Music

Literature
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?
Inequality is artificially created by the state.

All human beings are equal in their own way.

Inequality is created by God.

Inequality is produced by the division of labor.
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?
He is relying on historical texts.

He is relying on religious texts.

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

Based on recent archaeological discoveries in the Eighteenth Century.
8 Which of these thinkers was not part of the French Enlightenment?
Montesqieu

G.W.F. Hegel

Diderot

Voltaire
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?
Mao Zedong

Maximilian Robespierre

Julius Caeser

Oliver Cromwell
11 How do Rousseau's views on the state of nature differ from those of Thomas Hobbes?
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.

Rousseau believes that man is naturally good.
12 How did man fill his days in the state of nature?
He developed the first, rudimentary philosophical concepts.

He contemplated the existence of God.

He was concerned only with his own immediate sensual needs.

He set about making tools for himself.
13 How is man different from animals?
There is no difference, man is an animal through and through.

Man possess self-perfectibility.

Man is born smarter than animals.

Man has a soul.
14 How did language come into being?
Through shouts and cries, which arouse pity.

It naturally developed from man's superior brainpower.

It naturally emerged from the collective nature of human life.

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

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

They were general, since man's experience was very narrow.

Language emerged more or less fully developed.
16 How is pity different in the state of nature than it is in civilization?
Civilization makes people hard and pitiless.

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

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

There is no difference, art is rooted in the sentiment of pity.
17 How did love function in the state of nature?
Human beings grew attached to one another, which resulted in jealous conflicts.

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

Human beings regularly gathered for orgies, then dispersed.

Human beings were naturally attached to one another.
18 What sort of competition existed between people in the state of nature?
Without laws to hold them back, human beings fought violently with one another.

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

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

Without the materialism of society, human beings worked together cooperatively.
19 What critique did Karl Marx have of Rousseau's conception of nature?
He felt that Rousseau was not radical enough in his critique of private property.

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

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?
Louis Althusser

Theodor Adorno

Walter Benjamin

Jacques Ranciere
21 Why was the state of nature not more dangerous than civilization?
Civilization protects people, but it also gives them cause to harm one another.

It was, in fact, more dangerous.

People in the state of nature were naturally virtuous.

People in the state of nature had a closer relationship to God.
22 What reception did the Second Discourse have among the philosophers of Rousseau's time?
Largely positive—his readers agreed that he exposed monarchy as illegitimate.

Indifferent. The Second Discourse wasn't widely read until the twentieth century.

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.
23 Which German playwright was influenced by the importance that Rousseau placed on pity and the sight of human suffering?
Heiner Muller

Bertolt Brecht

G.E. Lessing

Heinrich von Kleist
24 What were the first associations between people like?
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.

Religious. People first gathered into communities of similar faith.

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.

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

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

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

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