#24 - Sometimes one reads a poem and believes that the poem

[Blondeucus]

I've read all the questions on this thread and for the life of me I cannot figure out this question at all. the real world reference to the news didn't help I get that example but I don't understand how it pertains to the stimulus. If I wasn't given the correct answer I would have a 20% chance of getting the correct answer on this question any help would be appreciated because I'm lost. I understand the negation test but I don't even really understand the argument is trying to make which I think is the main problem I'm facing.

My interpretation of the argument is below
P1 Sometimes people read a poem and believe that there's contradictory ideas. (Seems reasonable enough to me)
P2 It is wrong to think that the meaning of a poem is whatever the author intends to communicate to the reader. (This seems ridiculous but it's an LSAT stimulus so that's not too unusual)
Conclusion- Nobody writing a great poem intends it to communicate contradictory ideas. (thinking in the real world this doesn't make sense to me.) Obviously this is in contention with P1 so it could be assumed the people are wrong about their beliefs about the ideas. Or It could be in contention with P2 because perhaps the meaning of the poem is coming from some other form outside the means of the poem? or p2 is just strengthening the idea of p1 by reaffirming that the reader won't get the meaning of the poem so whatever the reader perceives is wrong anyways?

Is the argument stating that authors sometimes unintentionally write poems that can be interpreted in contradictory ways? In which case the necessary assumption being that the readers are correct in their interpretations makes sense because then the authors still never intended it to have contradictory ideas. And the readers are still correct in their interpretations of the meaning in the poem.

I think I might have just typed through all that and gotten the argument if that's the answer if that's not the answer I am in great need of assistance in understanding this problem lol.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Blondeucus,

The first thing that is likely making this argument confusing for you is that you have mistaken the conclusion and a premise.

The second sentence of the argument "So it is wrong to think that the meaning of a poem is whatever the author intends to communicate to the reader by means of the poem" is the conclusion of the argument, not a premise. One good clue that this is the conclusion of the argument is the conclusion indicator word "so." Similar to "therefore" or "thus," it indicates that this second sentence follows from the others.

Remember, the conclusion is not always at the end of the argument. The test makers often hide it at the beginning or in the middle of the argument, especially for trickier questions like this one.

The final sentence of the argument is another premise of the argument.

To better understand the logic of the argument and the assumption being made, let's first imagine that we had a slightly different argument than the one given in the stimulus.

Imagine the first premise was changed as follows:

P1: The meaning of some great poems contains contradictory ideas.
P2: No one who is writing a great poem intends to express contradictory ideas.
C: Therefore, it is wrong to think that the meaning of a poem is whatever the author intends to communicate to the reader by means of the poem.

This argument as written makes logical sense. Basically, if some great poems have contradictory ideas in their meaning but the writers would never intend to do that, then the meaning is sometimes different than what the writers intended. (That could be due to the reader's interpretation, or the writer subconsciously included contradictory ideas without intending to do so, etc.. It doesn't really matter for the argument how or why it happened.)

Now, the argument given in the stimulus is not identical to the one above. The key difference is the first premise in the actual argument is about people believing that a poem expresses contradictory ideas. What is missing from the argument (the unstated premise aka the assumption) is a statement than links the people believing something appears in a poem to that being part of the poem's meaning, which is exactly what Answer E does.

[ashpine17]

what if the author DID intend for the contradictions that the readers are seeing? would that trash the argument?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi ashpine,

In this argument, we really only care about "great poems." The reason is that readers sometimes believe that a poem expresses contradictory ideas even for great poems, which seems to contradict the other premise that authors of great poems don't intend to communicate contradictory ideas. In other words, if mediocre or bad poems express contradictory ideas, that is not relevant to this argument.

Based on that, I'm going to modify your question slightly in my answer.

If the authors always intend for the contradictions that the readers are seeing (even in great poems), then that would undermine the argument, but it would also directly contradict the final premise that "no one who is writing a great poem intends it to communicate contradictory ideas."