#24 - Until recently, experts have been unable to identify

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thank you!

[Mollythecatttt]

Had a really hard time with this question, and fail for it twice during both the real test and a timed stimulated test ...

Here is how I think ---
Argument Analysis
P1: The battle scene and the self-portrait are dated the same year (the year the battle scene was created)
P2: One of the figures in the battle scene looks like the young man in the self-portrait.
C: The artist who painted the self-portrait also painted the battle scene

Anticipation
Anticipation is really hard to make. The argument does not make sense to me at all -- How could "dated the same year" and "figures looks alike" prove the painter is the same???!!! Maybe the real painter of the battle scene just drew a random person who looks like the young artists ... ?
Okay, stay open to the answer choice. I need something helps me to prove that "the artist who painted the self-portrait DID NOT also paint the battle scene."

(C) looks pretty good to me. If it is not uncommon/it is common to use live models, then maybe the young artist shows up in the Renaissance painting because he was just a model, instead of the painter?

Why (C) is wrong? Anything wrong with my thinking process? Thank you very much!

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Molly!

Your prephrasing is not wrong--we are looking for an answer choice that suggests that maybe the self-portrait artist did not also paint the battle scene.

But answer choice (C) does not strongly weaken that argument. In fact, it's possible that answer choice (C) even strengthens the argument. If it's common for Renaissance painters to use live models (rather than just creating people out of their imaginations), then it seems possible that the artist could again have use himself as a model in the battle scene (just as he did in his self-portrait).

Answer choice (D) is much better at weakening this argument because it suggests that including his own self-portrait in the scene would have violated etiquette. This suggests that the presence of a figure resembling the artist is not a good indication that the artist painted the scene, thus weakening the argument that relies on that premise.

You are correct that this was a very flawed argument and it's good that you tried to keep your prephrase broad rather than focusing on any of the several ways of weakening it that you might have come up with. But I think you might have still gotten a little caught up in your initial instinct that the artist could have modeled for the painting without actually having painted it. It's so easy to get attached to our first instincts of how to weaken an argument even when we don't mean to! Just be careful about considering all the answer choices. Remember to always pick the best one. And if there's one that you think matches your prephrase well, try to make sure that it truly matches your prephrase and not that it's just kind of similar to your prephrase so you're trying to make it match.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[Mollythecatttt]

Hi Kelsey,

Thanks for the explanation! Now I can feel why (C) is not a good one. And you are correct that I was very happy to see an answer choice matches my anticipation, but did not realize this answer choice actually can also work to strengthen the argument to some extent.

I am still a little confused about (D). During the test, when I run into (D), i thought "okay it is a violation of etiquette. So what? Who cares? It is a violation of etiquette does not mean artists do not do so." Now, I am wondering whether I set the standard for the correct weakening answer choice too high -- It seems like I may be expecting the correct answer choice to "kill" the conclusion, while the goal here is just weakening ...

Thanks!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Molly,

You may be setting your weaken standards too high. You are looking for anything that hurts the argument, no matter if it's just with a tiny pinprick of a weakness or a super strong dynamite destruction. We are looking for something that makes it less likely that the presence of the artist's image indicates the artist was the painter.

In answer choice (D) it tells us that it would be a breach of etiquette for the painter to paint himself into the work. You are totally correct that it doesn't prove he didn't do it anyway. But it does give us a reason to think that maybe he didn't. It makes it less likely that the artist's image was showing that the artist was the painter of the battle scene.

Hope that helps
Rachael

[bigjoec]

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth, here.

"answer choice (C) does not strongly weaken that argument"
then
"You are looking for anything that hurts the argument, no matter if it's just with a tiny pinprick of a weakness or a super strong dynamite destruction. "

If answer choice (d) didn't exist, I would happily choose (c), and for the reason you mention: you are looking for anything that hurts the argument.

Level of weakening is important. And as to the continuance of your argument -- " it's possible that answer choice (C) even strengthens the argument... it seems possible that the artist could again have use himself as a model in the battle scene (just as he did in his self-portrait)." -- that's a super-strained scenario you've come up with such that (c) doesn't strengthen; it's a whole battle scene, are you suggesting that he brought in a bunch of models for all the other faces but posed in a mirror for one face? I mean, sure, that's possible, but highly unlikely.

I mean, I could come up with an argument that's just as strong as that as to how "it's possible that" **answer choice (D)** "even strengthens the argument". This guy is a young artist -- who but young artists are known for going out of their way to violate rules of etiquette? Young bankers? Young politicians? No, young artists. Perhaps this was one such young artist who went out of his way to violate rules of etiquette -- then the new fact proposed by (D) would strengthen, not weaken, the argument.

So in summary, both (C) and (D) weaken. But (D) does weaken the argument the most among the answer choices.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi bigjoe,

You're right that there are occasionally Weaken questions where there are degrees of weakening effect among two of the answer choices. I've never seen "degrees" of weakening effect among more than two answer choices. That's not to say it couldn't occur, but it'd be an extreme outlier. But, and here's the key, in the rare circumstances when there are degrees of weakening effect exhibited by two of the answer choices, there is always an objective reason why one answer is much stronger in its weakening effect than the other.

My own read of this question (you'll find that even among the experts there are sometimes small differences of opinion on these things, which might be the source of some of the tension you're reading in posts in this thread from different instructors!) is this: as stated, answer choice C does not weaken the argument, because we don't have sufficient information to know its impact on the argument. In fact, we need to know several additional relatively basic pieces of information before we can tell whether answer choice C would weaken (or strengthen) the argument: did the painter of the battle-scene painting follow the "not uncommon" Renaissance practice of using live models? Was the self-portrait painter someone who would've acted as a live model for the paintings of other painters (or, if not, did the battle-scene painter have a live model who looked very similar to the self-portrait painter)? Did the use of live models include use of one's own image, such that the self-portrait painter could've used himself as a "live model"? The answers to all these questions have to "break" the right way in order for answer choice C to weaken the argument. Now, I agree with you that if the answers to those questions DO break the right way, then answer choice C has a weakening impact. But the creators of the test don't very often require that much from me in terms of outside assumptions to pick a weaken or strengthen answer.

You might say you have to make an outside assumption in order for answer choice D to weaken the argument, and I would agree with you that's true. But (and here's the key, from the perspective of which answer choice is "objectively" stronger in its impact), you only need to answer one question to arrive at answer choice D as a weaken answer: was the self-portrait painter someone who followed the rule of etiquette about painting himself among aristocrats? That's the only question whose answer I need to "break" the right way in order to find a weaken impact. That's what renders answer choice D an objectively stronger "weaken" answer than the rest.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[dbrowning]

Hi,

I chose B over D under timed conditions, and I do not see why D is a better answer than B (though I think they both weaken). With respect to B, if most of the figures in the painting resemble real people from history, it makes it more likely that some other artist painted the picture, including other famous people as inspiration for the subjects of the painting. The potential knock against D was that we do not know if the relevant artist cared about etiquette. There are two potential knocks against B: 1. perhaps every real person in the painting, minus the artist, was actually at the battle; 2. we were told that this portrait was from early in the artist's career, so maybe they were not famous yet. So I suppose there are more problems with B than D. However, I would like to hear some feedback on this. My thought was that: well if the painting had people who resembled Picasso, Rembrandt, and Winston Churchill, it makes it much more likely that someone else was just painting famous/real people into a battle scene.

[Adam Tyson]

Interesting analysis, dbrowning! As i see it, though, answer B is really just a "who cares?" answer choice. Who cares if the people in the painting looked like some actual people from history, whether living or dead, famous or not? Why would that make us doubt the conclusion that the artist who later became well known painted the painting when he was younger and just starting out? If the person in the painting looked like someone famous, we probably wouldn't be focused on the fact that he actually looks a lot like the self-portrait of the young artist who later rose to fame. So we have a canvas with people who look like Aristotle and Elvis and Churchill, and also this artist at a young age. The author thinks that young artist is the painter. What about the other people in the painting would raise some concerns about that? It would be a real stretch to say "the artist who painted it put the young, not-yet-famous other artist in it along with some famous faces" or "the young artist also looked a lot like someone else who was already famous at the time." (This is probably too much emphasis on fame, by the way, when the answer doesn't mention fame but only "real people from history." My grandma is a real person from history, but she wasn't famous.)

Answer D is not about proving that the young painter could not have done the job. That's too high a standard for a simple Weaken question. But, if D is true (and we have to assume it is for our analysis, because the question stem told us to), then doesn't that raise some doubts about the claim? It should! It suggests that it would be rare, and perhaps even shocking, for this to have occurred. That's why it weakens - because it suggests that this conclusion would rely on an unusual or shocking occurrence, and that raises at least some doubts about the it.

In my view, answer B raises no doubts at all. I would completely shrug it off. Don't try to rationalize why it could hurt the argument. Just ask yourself "does this make me worry about the conclusion?"

I'll also weigh in on the somewhat passionate earlier discussion about answer C by saying that it, too, gives me no pause. I read it and said to myself "so what, who cares?" Okay, fine, artists use live models. What does that have to do with whether the artist painted the painting that includes a person that looks a lot like him? It gives me no reason to question the conclusion. It's a nothing burger.

[frk215]

Hello!

I just wanted to weigh in with what made me hesitate during this question. The way I crossed out answer choice E was by arguing that hey it doesn't really matter if the battle took place before, he totally could've painted it anyways. But then the same idea/rationale can be applied to D exactly --> hey, it doesn't really matter if it violates ethic, because he could've done that anyway.

The fact that I was able to apply it in this manner made me real hesitant and then simply confused, because I figured I could probably justify a weakening argument for most of these choices. Could someone please provide some tips on how I could move through these answers more quickly and effectively?