Logical Reasoning

PT112 · S1 · Q22 Any writer whose purpose is personal

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Any writer whose purpose is personal expression sometimes uses words ambiguously.

Conclusion (Thus)

No poetry reader's enjoyment depends on attaining a precise understanding of what the poet means.

(i.e. every poetry reader could fail to attain a precise understanding of what the poet means but still enjoy the poem)

Evidence

Writer whose purpose → sometimes uses words is personal expression ambiguously

Poet → purpose is personal expression

Evaluate

Okay, this is a bit of a mess, since the conclusion kind of has some surprising elements that came out of nowhere.

Let's start with the fact that the first two sentences combine to yield this idea: every poet sometimes uses words ambiguously

We've got to pick an answer that combines with that premise and delivers us proof of this claim: no poetry reader's enjoyment depends on attaining a precise understanding of the poet

Since there is a new idea in the Conclusion (what a poetry reader's enjoyment depends on) and we're doing Sufficient Assumption, that idea must be in the correct answer.

There's definitely some potential similarity between saying that every poet is going to sometimes use words ambiguously and the conclusion's language about .

We can add our own Dictionary-based assumption that when you use words ambiguously, a reader cannot attain a precise understanding

(that's basically inherent in the meaning of the word 'ambiguous')

Goal

So we know that every poet sometimes uses words ambiguously, which means the poem's reader will not be able to attain a precise understanding of the poet means with those words, and yet supposedly (we want to prove that) the reader's enjoyment is not affected at all by this.

I wouldn't know exactly how to phrase what we're looking for, but I know it needs to include "no poetry reader's enjoyment depends on" or some equivalent idea.

22.

The conclusion can be properly inferred if which one of the following is assumed?

Writers who sometimes use words
Unrelated to Goal
Since the premises didn't define what a poetry reader's enjoyment does / doesn't depend on, the correct answer must define that idea or else we can never derive a conclusion that uses those words. So as soon as we look at this answer and see it doesn't define what a poetry reader's enjoyment does / doesn't depend on, we can eliminate it.
13% picked this
Writers whose purpose is personal
Unrelated to Goal
Since the premises didn't define what a poetry reader's enjoyment does / doesn't depend on, the correct answer must define that idea or else we can never derive a conclusion that uses those words. So as soon as we look at this answer and see it doesn't define what a poetry reader's enjoyment does / doesn't depend on, we can eliminate it.
4% picked this
Correct
No writer who ever uses
Why this is right
This has the New Term from the conclusion we're insisting on, so let's give it a look. It's a conditional in the form of No A's are B, which translates into A → ~B if you're a writer that then you have no reader ever uses words → whose enjoyment depends ambiguously on attaining a precise understanding If you're a poet, your purpose is personal expression, so you sometimes use words ambiguously. So every poet is a writer who sometimes uses words ambiguously. According to the rule in this answer choice, "every poet has ZERO readers whose enjoyment depends on attaining a precise understanding of what the poet means". Since poets' readers are poetry readers, this is saying that ZERO poetry readers' enjoyment depends on attaining a precise understanding of what the writer means. Thus, we've derived the conclusion!
Skill tested: Sufficient Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
67% picked this
Most writers whose readers’ enjoyment
Too Weak
Without digging in too deeply, we would know this is wrong because of the word "Most". That quantifier leaves room for exceptions, but we're doing Sufficient Assumption and we must 100% prove our conclusion, airtight, no exceptions. If we dug in more deeply, it's a mess. It's only saying that if you looked at all the writers whose readers' enjoyment doesn't depend on attaining a precise understanding of the writers' meaning, then most of those writers would be poets. But that doesn't even mean that most of a poet's readers are people whose enjoyment does not depend on a precise understanding. And even if it did mean "most of a poet's readers are the type of readers we're talking about in the conclusion", we would still call this too weak, since we need to prove that ALL of a poet's readers are of this type. If I say, "Most people who have played in a Superbowl weigh over 240 lbs", that doesn't mean that "most people who weigh over 240 lbs have played in a Superbowl".
11% picked this
Readers who have a precise
Opposite of our Goal
We're trying to prove that a whole class of readers does not have their enjoyment depend on attaining a precise understanding. This is talking about people whose enjoyment does depend in part on attaining a precise understanding.
5% picked this

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