Logical Reasoning

PT146 · S1 · Q20 Lyle: Admittedly, modernizing

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Lyle: Admittedly, modernizing the language of premodern plays lessens their aesthetic quality, but such modernizing remains valuable for teaching history, since it makes the plays accessible to students who would otherwise never enjoy them.

Evaluate

Most of the time, the two people disagree over an explicit claim. Sometimes, there's nothing explicit and we have to ask ourselves about assumptions. But we can start by taking each of Person 1's claims and asking ourselves if Person 2 tried to go against that idea.

Did Carl try to argue that modernizing the language of premodern plays does not lessen their aesthetic quality?

No, Carl never talks about aesthetic qualities (what makes them beautiful or artistically worthwhile)

Did Carl try to argue that modernizing the language of premodern plays is not valuable for teaching history?

Yes, he explicitly says that .

Did Carl try to argue that modernizing plays does not make them accessible to students who would otherwise never enjoy them? (i.e. is he saying that modernizing doesn't make someone who wasn't likely to see it now be likely to see it?)

No, Carl doesn't comment at all on whether the potential audience for a premodern play widens / doesn't widen, as a result of modernizing its language.

Goal

Since Carl only disagreed with Lyle's 2nd claim, we'll focus our prephrase on that language:

whether or not modernizing remains valuable for teaching history (because it widens the audience) or whether it is of no value for teaching history (because students can't gain deep knowledge of the past if the play has been modernized).

20.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses a point of disagreement between Lyle and Carl?

  1. whether modernizing the language of

    Neither Would Disagree

    Could we infer from either of these paragraphs a Disagreement? Is either person going to say that the modernized and the un-modernized plays have identical pedagogical value? No. Lyle might think it's a change for the better and Carl a change for the worse, but they both would seemingly agree that the pedagogical value can change when you modernize the language.

    6% picked this

  2. whether the loss in aesthetic

    Out of Scope

    Out of Scope: causal effect of aesthetic Carl doesn't even discuss the aesthetic impact of modernizing, and Lyle never draws a causal link between a loss of aesthetic quality and a loss/gain in usefulness. Lyle says, "yes, there is an aesthetic loss, but the usefulness remains". Carl has no position on this issue.

    15% picked this

  3. whether the highest form of

    Out of Scope: highest form

    Neither person deals with this extreme idea of "the highest form of aesthetic enjoyment". Lyle would say that "premodern plays whose language has been modernized do not provide the highest form of aesthetic enjoyment", since he sad that modernizing language lessens aesthetic quality. But we have no idea what conditions he or Carl think bring out the highest form.

    1% picked this

  4. Correct

    whether increasing the accessibility of

    Why this is right

    This sounds like Lyle's 2nd claim. He said modernized plays "remain valuable for teaching history", while Carl said that "modernizing plays is of no use for teaching history".

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

    77% picked this

  5. whether using plays with modernized

    Out of Scope for Carl

    Carl never discusses anything about whether aesthetic quality is lessened (we know that Lyle thinks it is).

    1% picked this

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