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

[sdlee4]

Could you explain why the correct answer is (E) and why all the wrong answer choices are incorrect? I couldn't understand how the correct answer connects the premise to the conclusion.

Thanks,
Sam

[Jon Denning]

Thanks for the question; it's a tricky one. Let's start with the conclusion and work backwards from there: the stimulus argues that it would be wrong to think the meaning of a poem is the same as what the author intends to communicate to the reader. That's a strange argument to me, because that's actually how I would define a poem's meaning (what the author is trying to say).

So why does this conclusion argue for a different definition of "meaning"? Because no author writing a great poem would intend to communicate contradictory ideas, yet some readers believe some great poems have contradictory ideas. In other words, the author's intention is not the same as a reader's interpretation.

Hopefully you can see that there's a jump in that logic, where we've gone from a difference in author's intent and reader's opinion, to conclude that the meaning does NOT come from author's intent. The correct answer will bridge that gap by saying that meaning instead comes from reader's opinion/belief. And that's exactly what E does: what the reader of a poem believes is part of that poem's meaning.

Hope that helps!

[Barcelona10]

LR 1, #24, ASSUMPTION: Reading Poems question: I was pretty lost on this question. I chose B because I thought the negation would be that some great poems intend to express many ideas, which could contradict the last sentence of the stimulus, i.e. “no one who is writing a great poem intends it to communicate contradictory ideas.” I see that the answer is E. Could someone please explain how that is the answer? I didn’t do a diagram on this question. Should we diagram this question? Thank you

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hey Barcelona10,

The reasoning in the stimulus is rather convoluted, which may be why you're having trouble with it. Let's simplify the argument:

• Premise 1: We believe some poems express contradictory ideas.
  
  Premise 2: No author wants his poems to communicate contradictory ideas.
  
  Conclusion: A poem does not always mean whatever the author wants it to mean.

On its surface, this is a pretty solid argument, provided that the contradictory ideas in question were part of the meaning of the poem. There is a slight disconnect here between "ideas" and "meaning": and that's the crux of the issue. What if the contradictory ideas we believe are expressed by the poem are not, in fact, part of the poem's meaning? This is the logical opposite of answer choice (E), and--if true--it completely destroys the argument. It does so by showing that our belief in whatever a poem expresses may not have anything to do with the real meaning of the poem. If so, then the meaning of the poem could still be whatever the author intends to communicate by means of the poem.

Admittedly, this is a rather abstract and convoluted argument. But you greatly increase your chances of getting the question right by 1) simplifying the argument whenever possible; and 2) apply the relevant technique in order to differentiate between Contenders and Losers. In this case, this was the Assumption Negation Technique.

To answer your last question, personally I wouldn't diagram this stimulus: although there are elements of conditional reasoning in it, you risk making the argument even more convoluted than it already is

Hope this helps! Let me know...

[Barcelona10]

Yeah, your explanation helps. Thank you very much!

I'm guessing on a test you would do the simplification in your head rather than written out? That's the hard part for me.

[Dave Killoran]

Exactly--you'd definitely want to do this in your head. Writing this much down would take way too much time.

As far as difficulty, note that this is question #24 overall. At this point in the section, you are likely to run into some pretty tough arguments. Fortunately, there should be plenty of arguments that you encounter earlier that will be easier to understand.

Thanks!

[lsattaker202]

Hello unfortunately I still do not understand the argument here. Can an instructor please use a real world example? How would this argument look like in the real world? Thank you.

[Eric Ockert]

Forgive me in advance as this may only be a rough approximation:

Premise: Many viewers believe that some respected news outlets peddle fake news.
Premise: However, no respected news outlet intends to disseminate news that isn't true.

Conclusion: Therefore, the veracity of the news is not always what news outlets intend it to be.

The only way this conclusion makes any sense is if one assumes that viewer's beliefs actually reflect reality. In other words, viewers' belief that news is fake means that it actually is fake. So, in this case, that assumption might read something like:

Assumption: If a viewer believes that a respected news outlet peddles fake news, then the news is untrue.

Likewise, the stimulus you are referencing requires assuming that readers' belief that they see contradictory ideas is actually reflected in reality. In other words, it requires there actually are contradictory ideas present in the poem.

Hope that helps!

[Relaxo]

Hi,

I scored all questions correctly in this section of LR but #24 I still can't understand why (E) is correct even after 3h of thinking about it. So it would be amazing to get some help on where I am going wrong, thanks in advance!

The argument:

Premise 1: No one who is writing a great poem intends it to communicate contradictory ideas
Premise 2: Sometimes, a reader believes that a poem expresses contradictory ideas (even if it is a great poem)

Conclusion: The meaning of a poem isn't whatever the author intends it to communicate to the reader

Now, since this is an assumption question, it means that if (E) is not true, the argument can't be true. Negating (E) I get:

Not (E): A reader believes a poem expresses a particular idea and that idea (by the reader) is never part of the meaning of the poem

So the logic now is:

Premise 1 and Premise 2 and Not (E) -> Not Conclusion
<->
Premise 1 and Premise 2 and Not (E) -> Meaning of a poem IS whatever the author intends it to communicate to reader

Is that crushing the argument because if now, even if someone believes that the poem expresses contradictory ideas, it is never the intended meaning of the poem by the author, and thereby, the authors intention, which is to never communicate contradictory ideas, is always fulfilled?

[Beth Hayden]

Hi Relaxo,

If when a reader believes that a poem expresses an idea, the reader's interpretation is not actually part of the meaning of the poem, then the argument fails. For the argument to work there has to be a connection between the ideas that a reader gets from the poem and its actual meaning.

I think that Eric's posting below really sums this up nicely by comparing it to the news. Viewers might read something into a story that the news outlet did not intend to communicate--and that is the flaw with this argument. E is the right answer because it fixes that flaw by asserting that this scenario never happens.

Of course in reality readers make all kinds of interpretations from text that the author didn't think about.

Hope that helps!
Beth