Logical Reasoning

PT152 · S1 · Q24 Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes

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Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes is a stack of boxes that are visually indistinguishable from the product packaging of an actual brand of scouring pads.

Conclusion

It's wrong to say "appearance alone entirely determines whether something is art". (translate: something besides appearance is involved in determining whether something is art)

Evidence

Warhol's BB's appears the same as a normal stack of BB's would. However, Warhol's is considered art, whereas a normal stack is not art.

Evaluate

The author is playing off an implicit contrapositive idea:

Since we learn that Warhol's scouring pads are art, but a normal stack wouldn't be, it triggers the contrapositive and tells us that "appearance can't be all that matters".

The author is refuting a generalization. She's shooting down the idea that . All she needs to do to shoot it down is present a counterexample, which she does: we see, with Brillo Boxes, a case in which the appearance is the same but the whether-or-not it's art is different.

Goal

Probably look for language like .

24.

The argument proceeds by

highlighting the differences between things
Unsupported Comparison
The argument doesn't discuss cases in which people believe people have a certain property (work of art) and cases in which they actually have the property of being art. The argument highlights a sameness between things that are believed to have and not have a certain property. The argument highlights that "appearance" is the same between two things, despite the fact that we believe one of them, Warhol's Boxes, to have the property of art, and believe the other one, a normal stack of boxes, not to have that property.
23% picked this
demonstrating that an opposing argument
Out of Scope: opposing argument
There isn't any opposing argument (an argument is a minimum of two claims: Conclusion and Support). There is just a proposition/claim/statement/generalization being rejected in the conclusion. Also, the author isn't emphasizing an ambiguity. She thinks it's clear that Warhol's Boxes count as art and a normal stack of boxes doesn't count as art. She using this (correct) judgment to show that there's more to art than appearance.
6% picked this
suggesting that two things that
Opposite: same type of thing
The author thinks that these two stacks of boxes are indistinguishable visually, but she thinks that they are different types of things: one is a work of art, the other is a random-ass pile of scouring pads. If indistinguishable things were always the same type of thing, then it would prove correct the statement in the conclusion, which our author is trying to disprove.
10% picked this
questioning the assumptions underlying a
Out of Scope: question assumption
The evidence of this argument is presenting a counterexample to the "theory" (?) that appearance alone determines whether or not something is considered art. It doesn't question any assumptions underlying the theory.
23% picked this
Correct
showing that something that would
Why this is right
Do we have a particular thesis? Yes. A thesis = proposition = generalization = claim = statement. THESIS: appearance alone determines what's art If that thesis were true, would it be possible for two visually indistinguishable things to differ in terms of whether they're art? Could it be that X an Y appear identical, but X is art and Y is not? No, that would be impossible if that thesis were true. And yet, the author shows, that is precisely what's going on in the case of Warhol's BB vs. a normal stack of BB's. They appear identically, but one is art and one is not art. That disproves the idea that "appearance is the only thing that determines whether something is considered art".
Skill tested: Method · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
38% picked this

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