Logical reasoning PrepTest 156 · Section 2 · Question 21

The philosopher does not rely exclusively on an old adage. Even though the philosopher cites the old saw that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," the philosopher also cites evidence that people can disagree over the artistic value of a painting or sculpture. Moreover, it wouldn't even be a flaw to rely on an "old adage whose truth has not been demonstrated." When we evaluate an argument's validity, we need to accept the premises as true. Answer choices like (A), which suggest that a premise might not be true, are therefore wrong on Errors in Reasoning questions.

When an Errors in Reasoning answer choice begins with "ignores the fact," we should ask, "Would this weaken the author's argument if true?"

This wouldn't weaken the philosopher's argument. In fact, this is entirely irrelevant to the philosopher's argument. Remember, we need to understand arguments through their conclusions. The philosopher's conclusion only addresses paintings and sculptures. Therefore, other kinds of art, like literature and poetry, have no bearing on whether there are objective standards for evaluating paintings and sculptures.

When an Errors in Reasoning answer choice begins with "fails to consider," we should ask, "Would this weaken the author's argument if true?"

This wouldn't weaken the philosopher's argument. Like (B), this is utterly irrelevant to the philosopher's argument. Again, we should understand arguments through their conclusions. Since the philosopher's conclusion is about paintings and sculptures, the objective standards for nonvisual art are irrelevant to the philosopher's argument.

When an Errors in Reasoning answer choice begins with "fails to consider," we should ask, "Would this weaken the author's argument if true?"

This would weaken the philosopher's argument. If people who disagree about the artistic value of a given painting are both incorrectly applying the same evaluation criteria to that painting, then their disagreement could result from their incorrect applications. Perhaps if they correctly applied the evaluation criteria, they would agree on the painting's artistic merits. In that case, the evaluation criteria could be a valid objective standard. In other words, this answer choice shows that disagreements over paintings don't necessarily mean that there aren't valid objective standards to evaluate paintings — the disagreements may just result from the parties incorrectly applying those valid standards.

Since the claim weakens the philosopher's argument, we can select this "fails to consider" answer choice and advance to the following question.

When an Errors in Reasoning answer choice begins with "fails to consider," we should ask, "Would this weaken the author's argument if true?"

This wouldn't weaken the philosopher's argument. In fact, this would probably strengthen the philosopher's argument. Experts in making artistic judgments would presumably be the people most likely to know about and correctly apply objective standards in evaluating artworks. If they still disagree over art, it is more likely that these objective standards don't exist. It's not a flaw to overlook information that would support your argument, so (E) is incorrect.