Logical Reasoning

PT136 · S4 · Q11 Art critic: The Woerner Journalism

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Art critic: The Woerner Journalism Award for criticism was given to Nan Paulsen for her reviews of automobiles.

Conclusion

It was wrong to give the criticism award to Paulsen for auto review.

Evidence

The award should be given for criticism; Paulsen's auto review was not that. It was about cars, which are utilitarian things, not art. And only art reveals important truths about the producing culture.

Evaluate

We can think about this conversationally and try to link the author's last two sentences to her goal of establishing that Paulsen's review doesn't count as criticism.

Why doesn't it count as criticism? The final idea in her train of thought is that this review of cars is not going to reveal important truths about our culture.

So she must be assuming that .

Formally, her last two sentences kind of looked like this: Paulsen's → about → not about → won't reveal review cars art objects important culture truths

Since her conclusion is trying to establish

Paulsen's -----------------------------> ~criticism review

we need a principle that provides that final link on the Evidence chain: won't reveal → ~criticism important culture truths

Goal

or "criticism should reveal important truths"

11.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the reasoning in the art critic's argument?

  1. The Woerner Journalism Award for

    Out of Scope: portrays

    We don't know from any evidence whether Paulsen portrayed cars as art, so we can't be sure if this rule even applies to Paulsen.

    9% picked this

  2. Correct

    Reviews of objects cannot appropriately

    Why this is right

    With "unless", you can switch it to "if-not": if objects not reveal important truths ? not criticism We know that Paulsen's review was about the object of cars, which is not art, which therefore does not reveal important truths. So according to this rule, Paulsen's review cannot be considered criticism. If we add that to the author's premise that the award should only be given to criticism, then we get to her conclusion that P's car review shouldn't have been given the award.

    Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    80% picked this

  3. Unless a review is written

    Out of Scope

    Out of Scope: for the purpose / writer's culture Man, this is a mean trap answer. If we use an "if-not" translation for the unless, we get: The review wasn't written shouldn't be to reveal important truths ? called about writer's culture criticism The rule definitely lands where we want it to. But can we trigger it? Do we know that Paulsen didn't write the auto review for the purpose of revealing important truths about her culture? Not quite. We know that, since the article was about cars. We know cars (being a non-art object) don't reveal anything about the culture that produced the car. But we don't know whether Paulsen was writing about cars in her culture. And maybe cars can't reveal any important truths about culture, but Paulsen's review of cars could have still had some revealing truth about her culture. Also, even if we thought we knew that her auto review doesn't reveal important truths, that wouldn't clearly establish whether she wrote the review with the purpose of revealing important truths. There's a distinction between Intent and Results.

    9% picked this

  4. The Woerner Journalism Award for

    Bad Premise Match

    Do we know whether Paulsen does / doesn't consider herself a critic? No, we have no idea. Hence, we can't use this rule because we don't know if it applies.

    0% picked this

  5. All writing that reveals important

    Illegal Opposite

    We were looking for ~Reveal Important Truths ? ~Criticism and this answer is giving the illegally negated version of that: Reveal Important Truths ? Criticism The rule in (E) only has the power to prove something is criticism (or doesn't reveal important truths). It doesn't have the power to prove that something isn't criticism.

    1% picked this

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