Q17 - Art critic: Criticism focuses

[zach.wallis]

Would someone mind detailing the reasoning behind this one, please?

[aileenann]

Of course - happy to help out, Zach. I am guessing you are interested in hashing out how this argument is working.

I often find the best method for working through an argument - especially one I don't understand - is to work it out sentence by sentence. That is, if a particular sentence didn't make sense to me, I stick with that sentence rather than moving on. Doing the opposite is a sure fire way to get lost on these harder arguments.

I'd sketch out the argument as below:

Art criticism focuses on two things. However, these two things are related and cannot be otherwise.

I'd say the second sentence is the conclusion. Once I had a handle on the argument at this truly fundamental level, I'd go back and look at it in more detail filling things in where necessary to round out my understanding. That said, my presumption is that information is not important unless proven otherwise Here, you probably want to round out what I have above a little - in particular because the reason the two things are related depends on what those two things are.

Let's take a look at the answer choices, keeping in mind that we are looking for the answer choice that shows the flaw in the argument:

(A) mistakes the argument. He is not arguing that quality is never objective - if it were, it wouldn't be an open question addressed in this argument.

(B) is irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether people agree about what is a matter of taste - that's going meta on us, discussing what people agree about what people agree!

(C) is the correct answer. If you think about it, the author is arguing that once something is not intrinsic, and is thus extrinsic, then it is a matter of taste - thus not objective, You see this especially in the last three lines of the argument. If you think about it, if the author cannot take this for granted, the argument falls apart. Therefore the author most decidedly *is* taking this for granted!

(D) is the opposite of what we want! If you picked this, you misunderstood those last three lines. The author is talking about where the value is not intrinsic.

(E) just makes the first sentence more plausible by telling us that at least some art work falls into the intrinsic value category. But we don't really care. Even if this isn't so, the argument can hold water.

I hope this helps! Please follow up with questions or comments if this question and answer are still unclear.

[joseph.m.kirby]

This question asks us to identify the flaw.

First, the art critic provides us with two issues related to criticism:

(1) Whether the artwork value is intrinsic or not;

and

(2) Whether quality judgements are objective or matters of taste;

The critic notes that the issues are related and proceeds to explain how (although not fully):

P: ~intrinsic --> extrinsic
C: Thus, quality judgments are matters of taste

The author has arrived at an unsupported conclusion. For the argument to work, readers would have to assume: extrinsic --> quality judgments are matter of taste. This argument makes a big leap by assuming such a relationship. (C) notes this assumption.

[iryankees13]

Just looking to revisit a problem I had trouble with on a recent PT. I had a difficult time really understanding the argument and breaking it down and was wondering if I could get some help with that. I think I have a stronger grasp as to why the correct answer is C, I originally chose E under timed conditions and went back and went with C during blind review.

Is E wrong simply because it is bolstering/restating a premise? And C would be the correct answer because although we know that something that is not intrinsic is extrinsic doesn't mean we can make the leap that it is also subject to a matter of taste? Not sure if I explained that very well but any help would be appreciated!

[gaheexlee]

Is E wrong simply because it is bolstering/restating a premise? And C would be the correct answer because although we know that something that is not intrinsic is extrinsic doesn't mean we can make the leap that it is also subject to a matter of taste? Not sure if I explained that very well but any help would be appreciated!

Try pinpointing exactly which premise (E) is bolstering/restating; you'll see that there really is no premise that (E) supports because the stimulus never said/implied/assumed that some values are actually intrinsic! We only know what to do or think if a value is not intrinsic. Whenever you find yourself looking at an answer choice and saying "this is a premise booster" or the like, make yourself identify exactly where in the stimulus you see that said premise so you know you didn't just make something up. I thought I'd share since I know I do that (too often).

So I would say (E) is wrong because it is simply irrelevant to the argument which, as you correctly described, makes an unwarranted assumption between extrinsic values and matters of taste.

[bobjon1259]

Can an expert please provide an explanation for this question? It's not clicking for me and I still can't identify the core of the argument properly. I originally thought the conclusion was "these two issues are related..."

Thank you in advance!

[bobjon1259]

Can an expert please provide an explanation for this question? It's not clicking for me and I still can't identify the core of the argument properly. I originally thought the conclusion was "these two issues are related..."

Thank you in advance!

Patrick, are you able to help with this question? Thank you in advance.

[ohthatpatrick]

Sorry for the criminal delay here. I hate this question, so I'll do my best.

TYPE: Flaw

ARGUMENT CORE:
It's hard to list out this argument core in normal form because of the interrelation of its parts.

Conc - whether an artwork's value is intrinsic is related to whether judging the artwork's quality is objective vs. a matter of taste.

Evid - if value is NOT intrinsic, it's extrinsic, in which case judgements about quality are a matter of taste.

To better wrap my head around this conversation, I would try to think about what the author is saying in terms of how the two issues are related.

She seems to think that if we can figure out whether value is intrinsic or extrinsic, it will help us know whether judging quality is objective or a matter of taste.

If value IS intrinsic --> ? ? ? (I don't think the author clearly spelled out this half)
If value IS NOT intrinsic --> value is extrinsic --> judgments are matter of taste, not objective

Let's spell out the assumptions being made in each of those links:
ASSUMES: if not intrinsic, then extrinsic
ASSUMES: if value is extrinsic -> matter of taste, not objective

The first assumption seems pretty defensible, since intrinsic and extrinsic are opposites.

The second assumption is more debatable. Couldn't extrinsic value be objective?
Why is the author assuming it must be a matter of taste?

That's where we get the correct answer (C).

(D) would be tempting as it would appeal to our sense of a binary:
either it's intrinsic/objective or extrinsic/not-objective

But the author never went "there" with (D). She never said that if value is intrinsic, we can easily settle the second issue. All she's claiming in the conclusion is that the two issues are related. That's not as strong as saying the first issue completely determines the second issue.

Hope this helps.