Logical Reasoning

PT109 · S3 · Q16 Curator: Since ancient times, the

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Curator: Since ancient times, the fine arts were developed and sustained with the aid of large subsidies from the aristocracies and religious institutions that were the public sectors of their day; it is doubtful that the arts would have survived without these subsidies.

Conclusion (so)

Governments must help finance the maintenance, advancement, and enrichment of the fine arts today.

Evidence

Contemporary societies should fulfill their obligation as stewards of cultural heritage without the assistance of aristocracies or religious institutions.

Evaluate

This paragraph is pretty dense. Let's dumb it down a bit.

Back in the days of Olde Europe, there weren't legislative bodies of government. There were rich elites and the Church. They ran the show. Part of running the show was commissioning artists to create works. The Church and other rich elites would give artists food and shelter while the artists learned their trades and worked on art.

Without that help, the arts probably wouldn't have survived.

Then the author just pivots into an unsupported opinion of his own. He says, "Clearly", but it's not the typical clearly that signals a conclusion. It's just signaling an opinion the author thinks is a self-justifying truth.

Obviously, modern societies should also give artists the subsidies they need to survive. But obviously, modern societies shouldn't let rich aristocrats or the Church be the ones to give them the money.

Thus, governments need to help finance the maintenance, advancement, and enrichment of the fine arts today.

The author is assuming that the fine arts still need subsidies to survive, and the author is saying By concluding that governments will therefore have to supply the money, she's assuming that governments are the only other possible source of this money.

What about non-rich people all chipping in $20 or so? What about getting sports franchises to sponsor artists?

Goal

Let's look for a Linking idea like, , or look for a Defender answer like, .

16.

The curator's argument depends on assuming which one of the following?

The fine arts would be
Unsupported Comparison
The author hasn't said anything about a hypothetical world in which the arts were given greater subsidies, so we have no idea if he would expect that to result in more developed arts.
1% picked this
If contemporary governments help to
Bad Conclusion Match
SInce this answer is conditional, we can diagram it and check whether it matches a reasoning move the author made. contemporary private support governments ? will be help to maintain unnecessary and enrich the arts No that doesn't match. The right side definitely doesn't resemble the conclusion. The left side actually resembles the conclusion, and we never want to see the conclusion on the left side. Our argument core looked like this: need to subsidize art and contemporary religious groups / ? governments aristocrats not must help to an option maintain & enrich
9% picked this
In contemporary societies, aristocracies and
Out of Scope: willingness
The author isn't rejecting the idea of getting subsidy money from aristocracies and religious groups because he thinks they're unwilling to give money. (We don't know whether he thinks they are / aren't willing). He seems to just be saying, "That would be a bad look, for a modern society to still rely on the church and the super rich to fund our artists. We've moved beyond that unseemly period of history when the church and the elites ran the show."
18% picked this
Correct
Serving as stewards of cultural
Why this is right
Since this answer is conditional, we can diagram it and check whether it matches a reasoning move the author made. serving as stewards help to maintain cultural heritage ? the fine arts Does that match? Sure, I guess. The author's premise is that contemporary societies have an obligation to serve as stewards of cultural heritage. The conclusion includes the idea that governments will need to help finance the maintenance of the fine arts today. So the argument does move from "if you're serving as steward of cultural heritage, then something is going to need to finance the maintenance of the fine arts". If we negated this, we'd get a decent objection: "Yo, author -- yes, we should be good stewards of cultural heritage, but that doesn't mean we need to help to maintain the fine arts. (Maybe the arts are actually doing fine on their own. The artists in ancient times wouldn't have survived without their subsidies, but maybe the artists nowadays are finding ways to make money and support themselves.)" If you're wondering, "Why does this answer just refer to a subset of the Conclusion?", the answer is No good reason. The test writers probably chose to write it this way so that it would be a weirder, trickier correct answer. We shouldn't blame ourselves for having not predicted this exact link.
Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
64% picked this
Maintenance, advancement, and enrichment of
Too Strong: any / require
This actually kind of contradicts the passage. In ancient times, the fine arts didn't require governmental subsidies. The artists got subsidies from rich aristocrats and from church institutions. Even without that apparent contradiction, we wouldn't be able to accuse the author of assuming that in every single era, the fine arts require governmental subsidies. The author is only claiming/assuming that in this contemporary era. the fine arts require some form of subsidy (which he ultimately concludes will have to come from the government).
8% picked this

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