Q26 - People may praise the talent

[hyewonkim89]

What makes (D) better than (E)?

Thanks in advance!

[Jakexcohen]

I chose E as well, and I don't see how there's a 'historical fact' rooted in this stimulus... tough question for myself I'd appreciate some clarification.

Thank you Manhattan LSAT Forums!

[maryadkins]

Hey guys!

Good question. So the argument here is:

An exact replica of a thing is not the only thing people value in art, otherwise, photographs would have replaced painting completely.

What part of that is the conclusion?

The first part, right: An exact replica of a thing is not the only thing people value in art.

(D) invokes the fact that photography hasn't replaced painting ("a historical fact") to support the claim about people's preferences (they don't only value exact reproduction)

(E) is close to (D), but a couple of things are off. One, historical "context" isn't quite as accurate as historical fact. The argumenter uses one fact only: that photos haven't trumped paintings. But that's not so much "context" as just a statement. Also, is this argument DEFENDING the artistic preferences of people? Maybe, but that also feels like a stretch. The first part is background setting up the argument ("people may...""”we don't even know if they do, for sure).

As for the others:

(A) is wrong because of "most people" (we don't know that).

(B) is wrong because there's no appeal to an aesthetic principle"”the appeal is to a fact (photos haven't replaced paintings).

(C) gets the argument backwards.

Hope this helps!

[einuoa]

Hey guys!

Good question. So the argument here is:

An exact replica of a thing is not the only thing people value in art, otherwise, photographs would have replaced painting completely.

What part of that is the conclusion?

The first part, right: An exact replica of a thing is not the only thing people value in art.

(D) invokes the fact that photography hasn't replaced painting ("a historical fact") to support the claim about people's preferences (they don't only value exact reproduction)

(E) is close to (D), but a couple of things are off. One, historical "context" isn't quite as accurate as historical fact. The argumenter uses one fact only: that photos haven't trumped paintings. But that's not so much "context" as just a statement. Also, is this argument DEFENDING the artistic preferences of people? Maybe, but that also feels like a stretch. The first part is background setting up the argument ("people may...""”we don't even know if they do, for sure).

As for the others:

(A) is wrong because of "most people" (we don't know that).

(B) is wrong because there's no appeal to an aesthetic principle"”the appeal is to a fact (photos haven't replaced paintings).

(C) gets the argument backwards.

Hope this helps!

Just a question on E, when I saw the word "defend" I thought it made a lot of sense because I saw the background information as framing the argument and attacking the fact that abstract expressionists' efforts are worthless. Therefore, when the answer choice says to defend against that, it's defending against an implicit assumption that the efforts of abstract expressionists are not worthless.

Am I reading too much into this question? Could we not say that the first part is an attack because of the ambiguous "maybe" but that if the background said just "People praise the talent" instead, that would be an attack? Sorry for the awful sentence structure.

Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

I think it’s fair to say the first sentence implies that there may be an attack on abstract expressionists.

People may attack AE’s by saying that AE’s efforts are worthless. The author might defend AE’s by saying, “Hey, there’s more to a painting than direct representation”, but that would be the author defending Abstract Expressionists against criticism, not defending people’s artistic preferences.

In order to defend the artistic preferences of people, the artistic preferences of people need to be attacked. What claim in the argument attacks the artistic preferences of people? (e.g. something like “People are commonly confused about what good art really is”)

Since people’s preferences aren’t attacked, we can’t say that the author is defending them.

All that aside, it would still be hard to call the final clause “historical context”.

When you consider historical context, you think about the time period / events / society in which a certain action took place or in which a certain statement was made.

For example, if someone said something like “women shouldn’t be able to vote”, we would currently think of them as a terrible bigot. However, if we considered historical context and learned that this person lived prior to women’s suffrage, when most of society agreed with the idea that women shouldn’t vote, we wouldn’t think this person was as outrageous as before.

We could consider historical context to defend this person’s discriminatory claim.

However, in (E), the artistic preferences of people that the author discusses are PRESENTLY happening. He says that “exact replica is not the only thing people appreciate”. So considering the historical context of those preferences would be considering the present.

(E) would only make sense if the author was saying “Back in the 1800s people enjoyed the look of blood on a painting, but before you think of those art lovers as morbid, you should remember that there was no other affordable way to get a dark red pigment on the canvas.”

[einuoa]

I think it’s fair to say the first sentence implies that there may be an attack on abstract expressionists.

People may attack AE’s by saying that AE’s efforts are worthless. The author might defend AE’s by saying, “Hey, there’s more to a painting than direct representation”, but that would be the author defending Abstract Expressionists against criticism, not defending people’s artistic preferences.

In order to defend the artistic preferences of people, the artistic preferences of people need to be attacked. What claim in the argument attacks the artistic preferences of people? (e.g. something like “People are commonly confused about what good art really is”)

Since people’s preferences aren’t attacked, we can’t say that the author is defending them.

All that aside, it would still be hard to call the final clause “historical context”.

When you consider historical context, you think about the time period / events / society in which a certain action took place or in which a certain statement was made.

For example, if someone said something like “women shouldn’t be able to vote”, we would currently think of them as a terrible bigot. However, if we considered historical context and learned that this person lived prior to women’s suffrage, when most of society agreed with the idea that women shouldn’t vote, we wouldn’t think this person was as outrageous as before.

We could consider historical context to defend this person’s discriminatory claim.

However, in (E), the artistic preferences of people that the author discusses are PRESENTLY happening. He says that “exact replica is not the only thing people appreciate”. So considering the historical context of those preferences would be considering the present.

(E) would only make sense if the author was saying “Back in the 1800s people enjoyed the look of blood on a painting, but before you think of those art lovers as morbid, you should remember that there was no other affordable way to get a dark red pigment on the canvas.”

Thank you! That makes so much sense!