Logical Reasoning

PT148 · S3 · Q16 There are already more great artworks

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There are already more great artworks in the world than any human being could appreciate in a lifetime, works capable of satisfying virtually any taste imaginable.

Conclusion

Modern artists are wrong to think that their art lets people get more aesthetic joy than they would get without that artwork. (The works of modern artists don't give people more aesthetic fulfillment than they'd otherwise have)

Evidence

There's such a surplus of great art in the world, more than you could ever consume in a lifetime and capable of satisfying virtually any taste.

Evaluate

Jeez, man. You're giving me a lot of FOMO here.

How can we accept this premise but fight the conclusion and somehow argue that the works of modern artists do provide some aesthetic fulfillment that wouldn't otherwise be satisfied?

This is a really tough riddle for me to crack. If you think about music, as an example, does any new song fulfill an aesthetic need we couldn't have otherwise fulfilled?

An exotic counterexample that comes to my mind is to argue that if you don't have access to internet, you don't have The World's Great Catalogue of music available to you.

You live in Antarctica or the Galapagos Islands, and you miss your Swedish death metal. You can't get it online. You don't have it with you. Then, what's this? Sven, who works at the same lab as you, shares his artwork with you. Lo and behold it's Swedish death metal. You two sit together at the lab cafeteria forevermore.

Goal

Find an answer that is less stupid than that, but similarly allows us to argue that even though more than enough great art exists there's still some way for a modern artist to be useful in a way that provides someone with something they wouldn't otherwise have.

16.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

overlooks the possibility that not
Not Overlooked
The author didn't overlook this possibility. She directly confronted it and asserted that "all contemporary artists believe this". When we see answers that say, fails to consider X overlooks/neglects the possibility that X We usually ask ourselves, "If X were true, would it weaken". However, we technically also need to ask ourselves, "Did they really fail to consider this?" There have only been 5 or fewer answers that have been wrong for this reason, but it does sometimes happen. For all Flaw answers we're asking 1. Is this true? 2. Is this objectionable? When it comes to "presumes / takes for granted", 99% of them are wrong because the author didn't make that assumption (fails #1). But very rarely, the author did make an assumption, but it wasn't objectionable (fails #2). When it comes to "fails to consider / overlooks", 99% of them are wrong because they're not objectionable; they wouldn't actually weaken (fails #2). But very rarely, like this answer, they're wrong because the author didn't fail to consider the idea (fails #1).
5% picked this
presumes, without providing justification, that
Too Specific
Too Specific: most Out of Scope: time to appreciate The author certainly wasn't assuming something about 51% or more of human beings. And whether or not art consumers take the time to appreciate art is drifting mightily from the conversation we're having about whether or not art creators are filling in an open niche.
1% picked this
presumes, without providing justification, that
Out of Scope: value
The author mentions that there are a ton of great artworks, but doesn't provide any criteria for what makes them great. So there are no assumptions being made about what gives an artwork value. The only assumption about 'value' could be something like: "the aesthetic value of a new piece of artwork is not special if there is already another great artwork capable of satisfying that taste".
3% picked this
Correct
overlooks the possibility that the
Why this is right
This is solid objection to the conclusion, since it gives a way to argue that "at least some contemporary artists are enabling people to feel more aesthetically fulfilled than they would without this art". If many people are severely restricted from the great majority of art, then modern artists could have irreplaceable value, in these "culture deserts".
Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
40% picked this
presumes, without providing justification, that
Out of Scope: "the amount"
The author isn't assuming that "because there's so much available great art, you'll get a lower amount of aesthetic fulfillment out of contemporary artwork". She's assuming that "because there so much available great art, you're not getting irreplaceable aesthetic fulfillment out of contemporary artwork". You might totally rock out to the music of a contemporary artist, and the author would just say, "You could have rocked out just as much to Rage Against the Machine, which already existed".
51% picked this

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