#24 - We ought to pay attention only to the intrinsic

[ashpine17]

Trying to approach this question via diagramming/conditional reasoning confused the heck out of me. I just can't see why the last sentence is the main conclusion. Aren't the first and last sentences saying the exact same thing, except phrased a little differently? They are both stating that we ought to only pay attention to the intrinsic (what's directly represented as opposed to extrinsic, or symbolic, aspects of the artwork).

Is there something I'm missing? Help.

[Robert Carroll]

Tajadas,

The conclusion has another part that you missed: that what a painting symbolizes is not aesthetically relevant. If what it symbolized were external, that would make sense.

I think, ultimately, that trying to make the statements in the stimulus into conditionals does not aid understanding and in fact can confuse the issue. A more intuitive understanding seems appropriate: intrinsic properties deserve attention, not extrinsic ones. What's directly presented is what's relevant, not what it symbolizes. "What it symbolizes" is floating in the conclusion without any connection to the premises, so we should connect it.

ashpine17,

Try the non-conditional approach I outlined above! I agree that trying to force a conditional understanding, even if it's technically correct, doesn't do what we want out of a conditional diagram - a better understanding of the stimulus.

The first sentence and the last sentence are not saying the same things - nothing about what an artwork symbolizes is in the first sentence. I don't just mean that the words are not in the sentence, but that nothing in the sentence covers the idea "symbolism" or is translatable to it at all. So we have the last sentence with its conclusion indicator ("therefore") and the other sentences, which the author just claims without trying to prove them. The only statement the author is trying to show is based on others is the last sentence. Thus, the last sentence must be the conclusion.

Robert Carroll

[nshakfeh]

Hello,

Seeking guidance on this question, I am confused by this entire stimulus. I understood it to mean that one should focus on how an artwork makes a person feel rather than focusing on its aesthetic attributes (watercolor, acrylic, etc.). So, I chose answer choice "D" and am unsure why the correct answer choice is "A" since answer choice "A" seems (to me) to contradict the stimulus.

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

I think you've added a concept to the stimulus that the author never discussed, nshakfeh. There's nothing in the stimulus about feelings. You may have brought in some assumptions there that you should have left out of your analysis.

The stimulus claims that the only thing relevant to aesthetics (which deals with appearances, whether something is beautiful to look at) is what is directly presented to us in the painting, and that everything symbolic is irrelevant to that analysis. Symbolism might have something to do with out feelings - we don't know, since that wasn't discussed - but the author is claiming that symbolism has nothing to do with outward, physical beauty. How do we prove that? Since the author claimed that only the intrinsic properties matter in an aesthetic analysis, we have to say that the symbolic stuff is not intrinsic.

As for answer D, even if an artwork could symbolize nothing, that wouldn't prove that symbolism isn't relevant to aesthetics. Painting A might symbolize nothing, but what if Painting B did symbolize something, and that symbolism was intrinsic in the work, affecting our aesthetic judgment of it? We need an answer that eliminates that possibility if we want to justify the conclusion here.

Be careful about how you interpret the stimulus! Don't turn it into something it isn't. I like to say that it helps to be more like a robot in how you analyze these things, setting aside any creativity and personal judgment. As soon as we start to think to ourselves "well, couldn't this thing they said mean something else that they didn't say," we are setting ourselves up for trap answers. Keep it limited to the words they said, and the clear meaning of those words, and you'll be on safer ground, especially when you want to very mechanically perfect the connection between the premises and the conclusion in a Justify question.