#8- Must Be True, Subject Perspective

[JSLSAT]

Hi PowerScore,

Could someone explain why Lessing would not necessarily hold the believe in answer 'E'?

Thanks!
JS

[Adam Tyson]

Be careful about questions like this one, John - we aren't in the business of proving that Lessing does NOT believe the wrong answers to be true. Rather, as the question stem asks of us, we are to pick the answer that has the most support from the passage. In other words, this is a Must Be True question - to select the right answer you have to find the facts that support that answer in the stimulus, without speculation or assistance on our part, and it needs to be the best answer of the five presented.

So now I'll toss it back to you - if you were to select answer E, you would have to be able to find support for it in the text of the passage, either by a direct quote or very clearly implied. Where do you find that support for E? Importantly, is that support, if you find any, better and stronger than the support you find for answer A? We want the one with the most support, not just one that might be true.

Take another look, especially for evidence about what Lessing's criteria are for "great achievements in artistic terms" and whether aesthetic value is of no importance. Come back and share what you find, and we can talk about it a little more.

[JSLSAT]

Thank you for the guidance on this one. I took lines 37 through 41 to indicate that he would support the idea in E ("Works of art that have little or no aesthetic value can still be said to be great achievements in artistic terms"). Those lines are:

"All art, explains Lessing, involves technique, but not all art involves origination of a new vision, and originality of vision is one of the fundamental questions by which artistic, as opposed to purely aesthetic, accomplishment is measured."

I took this to indicate that Lessing believes there are more elements to determining artistic achievements than aesthetic value, therefore a work with "little or no aesthetic value" may still be a "great achievement in artistic terms", by having supreme originality of vision.

I do see how the author overtly uses van Meegeren's forgery as the example case to illustrate (which may make A the 'better' answer), but I'm just not clear on how the above fails to support E.

Thank you again.

[Shannon Parker]

John,

I see what you are getting at, but as Adam stated its not just a matter of supporting, its a matter of the strongest level of support. In lines 30-35 the author talks about Lessing arguing that the aesthetic quality of the forgery is flawless, and in lines 48-56 he most strongly supports answer choice A by stating that even if we grant that the forgery is superior aesthetically, it is still artistically inferior because it produces nothing new.

I can see how this argument can seem to bleed into support for (E), for because if there are things that are more artistically important than aesthetic value, maybe there could be great art that has no little or aesthetic value. The problem is that the author does not address this. Lessing talks about the historical significance that Vermeer's work makes being what makes it great. That historical significance however, was the origination of a new treatment of light, color, and form. Something that author never claims to lack aesthetic value.

Answer Choice is not precluded by the passage, however as Adam said, this is in effect a "Must be True," question. To disprove (E) simply rewrite the sentence "Works of art that have little or no aesthetic value CANNOT still be said to be great achievements in artistic terms," and then attempt to see if that is possible. If the opposite of the answer choice is possible, then the answer choice does not qualify as "must be true." I hope this helps clear it up some.

~Shannon

[JSLSAT]

Yes, that definitely helps. Thank you again for your time and help!

[lalalala]

Hello,

I was also debating between A/E and ultimately picked A, but wanted to see if my reasoning checks out for eliminating E.

I thought that the passage never really discussed works of art with little to no aesthetic value. It did mention art without artistic value, but the artwork discussed––van Meegeren's forged artwork––was never said to have little aesthetic value. Because that was never discussed, we couldn't possibly infer anything about artwork with little to no aesthetic value.

Is this a correct way to eliminate E?

Thanks so much for all your help!!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi lala,

You are absolutely right on answer choice (E). We don't know what Lessig would say about works with little or no aesthetic value. There's some aesthetic value in the pieces discussed in the passage, so we don't have knowledge about Lessig's views on little aesthetic value. Great reasoning!

Keep up the good work!