#21 - Philosopher: For some kinds of art, there is truth to the adage

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (D).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[Claire.L]

Hello!

Could you please explain why D is correct and the others are incorrect? Especially why A is incorrect? Thank you!

[Dana D]

Hey Claire,

The philosopher says that just because two people may have differing opinions on the value of a painting or sculpture, there is no valid objective standard for determining value.

The flaw in this argument is thinking that just because two people have different opinions, there is no way to objectively determine value. Because this is an art example, we might be tempted to believe this, but consider, for example, if this example was talking about two parents who disagreed over how to treat their child's fever. Would we ever say that just because these two individuals (who may or may not have medical degrees) disagree there is no objective standard to determine treatment for a fever? No.

Answer choice (A) is incorrect because the author does actually try and demonstrate that there is truth to this adage- they use the premise of the two people disagreeing over value to prove the adage is true.

Answer (B) is true, but this is not a flaw in the argument. The author could add in that literature and poetry also experience different value interpretations, and the argument would still be flawed.

Answer (C) is out of scope of the question, since we are talking about "some kinds of art" here - in particular, painting and sculpture. This may be true for nonvisual art, but it has no bearing on the argument.

Answer (D) is the correct answer - maybe people disagreeing about value are doing so only because their criteria is whether or not they find the painting or sculpture aesthetically pleasing - that is objective. But an art critic may employ objective standards, such as the age or techniques used in the art, to assess value.

Answer (E), if true, would strengthen the argument overall by showing that even experts, trained to assess value, disagree because there are no objective standards for determining artistic value, therefore answer choice (E) cannot be a flaw.

[lemonade42]

Hello, I chose D, but I'm confused as why it says "incorrectly". I just prephrased the answer to say something like "just because they disagree, doesn't mean there are no standards". To me, D is saying "those who disagree might actually be using standards". But why does it include "incorrectly"?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi lemonade,

The argument is about when people disagree on whether a painting or sculpture has artistic value. Because people can legitimately disagree on this issue, the argument concludes that there are no valid objective standards for assessing artistic value.

The reason that Answer D mentions that people who disagree may be incorrectly applying the same evaluation criteria is that if they were correctly applying the same evaluation criteria, then they would presumably be in agreement.

For example, imagine that one objective criteria for a painting's artistic value is that it is symmetrical. If two people were correctly evaluating this criteria, they would either both agree that a painting is symmetrical or both agree that it is not symmetrical. If they disagree on this issue, then one of them would be incorrect.

[uncleschaeflit]

So is the first sentence just a red herring? Because if it is the "evaluation criteria" by which the two people are determining "artistic value," I don't see how such a subjective standard could ever be applied incorrectly.

[Adam Tyson]

As I see it, uncleschaeflit, the first sentence is agreeing with the adage, which is about subjective determinations of beauty. You may think something is beautiful, while I think it's hideous, but those are just our subjective opinions. Thus, that adage, and the example that illustrates it, don't really tell us anything about objective standards, but only about subjective opinions. Maybe my opinion that the thing is hideous is based on my incorrectly applying whatever objective standard I should have applied, while you were applying that standard correctly? That's what the author is failing to consider here: subjective opinions can differ even if there is some valid objective standard that could have been applied.