#21 - It is very difficult to prove today that a painting

[OneSeventy2019]

Powerscore,

I ended up selecting answer choice A but was debating between choice A and choice D. Here is my interpretation of the two choices:

A) There has been an incentive for art dealers to mistakenly identify unattributed works to famous artists; we ought to be wary about having an 'innocent until proven guilty' type of attitude when it comes to paintings with questionable origins.

D) Attribution effects how one views a work of art - the same inconsistency could be a stroke of genius (Leonardo DaVinci) or the mistake of an amateur (unknown artist). My question, is that wouldn't this also create an incentive for people to attribute works to masters instead of amateurs in the same way as choice A does?

The reason why I ended up choosing A rather than D was that with choice D we have to assume that the perception of the strokes of a genius would make it more valuable and potentially also that an individual would have the means and opportunity to operate based on this incentive. Am I along the right track in that choice D requires an additional assumption or is there something else, I'm glossing over? Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

I think your analysis is good here, OneSeventy2019, but there may be a simpler may to approach this question and the difference between these two answers, and that is to think of it in causal terms.

The author has said that prior attribution should be given special weight. We want to find an answer that weakens that claim, so look for one that shows a cause for prior attributions to be inaccurate. A motive might do it, or a procedural error, or some confusion on the part of the person who first said "this painting must have been done by so-and-so."

Answer A gives us a potential cause: some people who have attributed certain unsigned paintings to famous artists have been motivated by greed. They could be outright lying just to make more money.

Answer D doesn't give us a cause for an incorrect attribution, but rather an effect of that attribution! Once a painting has been attributed to a known master, it affects how we see and appreciate it, and the same happens when it has been attributed to a minor artist. That's what makes D a worse answer than A: A is about the cause of the attribution, and D is about the effect of that attribution. We need a cause, not an effect!

[Esquire123]

I’m still struggling to understand why D is incorrect. I genuinely think it connects to the topic being discussed.The conclusion is that we should give special weights to traditional attributions. Answer choice D describes a scenario in which giving attribution leads to people not truly valuing an art piece on its own merit but instead focusing on the name of the artist to decide whether or not the art piece is worth one’s time. To me, this seems to highlight a flaw in regards to attributing special weight to traditional attributions. I read a comment that D is wrong because it doesn’t specify “traditional attributions.” Traditional attributions are an extension of attributions so I don’t see how that would make this answer wrong. I would greatly appreciate some #help because I’m definitely spiraling hahah

Why is this answer choice considered irrelevant to the conclusion? I clearly misunderstood the stimulus but I’m not sure what part

[srusty]

I’m still struggling to understand why D is incorrect. I genuinely think it connects to the topic being discussed.The conclusion is that we should give special weights to traditional attributions. Answer choice D describes a scenario in which giving attribution leads to people not truly valuing an art piece on its own merit but instead focusing on the name of the artist to decide whether or not the art piece is worth one’s time. To me, this seems to highlight a flaw in regards to attributing special weight to traditional attributions. I read a comment that D is wrong because it doesn’t specify “traditional attributions.” Traditional attributions are an extension of attributions so I don’t see how that would make this answer wrong. I would greatly appreciate some #help because I’m definitely spiraling hahah

Why is this answer choice considered irrelevant to the conclusion? I clearly misunderstood the stimulus but I’m not sure what part

Hi Esquire,

Completely understand, answer choice (D) is a tricky one to parse! The main problem with answer choice (D) is that it focuses more on the perception of an art work because of attribution - not that the attribution itself brings special weight. The stimulus specifies that the "special weight" afforded by attribution is because of the presumption of historical continuity - not necessarily because of an art work being perceived better or worse artistically.

Let me know if that helps!

[Oz29xr8]

Hello after doing this question it left me very confused with weaken questions. So in weaken questions, is it the case that not all weaken questions are going to have me weaken the main conclusion? As I was doing this problem I found the main the conclusion of the problem tried to weaken it and now I saw in the explanation that the question asked to weaken a subsidiary conclusion. I had some trouble with this question and I would like some clarification on this because it really caught me off guard. Thank you.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Oz,

Yes, while correct answers to weaken questions generally weaken the main conclusion of the argument, they can do so indirectly by attacking a premise or an intermediate conclusion of the argument. Since a main conclusion is supported by premises and any intermediate conclusions, attacking any of these parts of an argument will weaken the overall argument including the main conclusion.

In this case, the question stem directs you to specifically weaken the idea that the traditional attributions should be given special weight, so that should be your focus when analyzing the answers.

While uncommon, there have been a number of weaken questions in LR that have specified what part or aspect of the argument to weaken rather than the more generally worded weaken questions.