Self-study
Literary critic: Conclusion There is little of social significance in contemporary novels, for Support readers cannot enter the internal world of the novelist's mind unless they experience that world from the moral perspective of the novel's characters. ███ ██ ████████████ ███████ ███ ██████████████ █████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ███████ ██████ ███ ████████████████ ██████████ █████ ████ ███████ ██ ██ ████ ███████ ██████ ████ ████ ██████ █████ ██████ ████ ██████ █████ ███████ ██ ██ ██ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████ ████
Summary
The author concludes that contemporary novels do not have much social significance.
Why does the author believe this?
If a reader cannot experience the novelist’s internal world from the moral perspective of the novel’s characters, then that means the reader cannot enter the internal world of the novelists’s mind.
In contemporary novels, transgressions commited by some characters against others are included only for the purpose of making readers wonder what will happen next, rather than to show the transgressions as injustices.
Notable Assumptions
There are two gaps in this argument.
First, notice that the conclusion brings up the new concept of being of “little social signifance.” We don’t have any premise that tells us when something is of little social significance.
To connect to that concept in the conclusion, we want to add something like the following principle:
If a reader can’t enter the internal world of the novelist’s mind, then the novel will have little or no social significance.
There’s also a gap between the premise in the last sentence and the conditional premise concerning the internal world of the novelist’s mind.
The author assumes that if the transgressions in a novel are included only to make readers wonder what will happen next, then that means readers cannot experience the internal world of the novelist’s mind from the moral perspective of the novel’s characters.
21.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ████████ █████████
a
An artist who █████ ██ ██████ ███ █████ █████████████ ██ ███ ██ ███ ████████ ██████ ███ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ████████ ██████████ ████ ██████████ ██████ ████ ███████ ████████ ██ ██ ███
Leads to wrong conclusion. (A) is a principle designed to help us prove that an artist shouldn’t assume something about what they’re expressing. But we’re trying to prove that contemporary novels don’t have much social significance. Nothing in the argument relates to what artists should or should not assume about their work.
b
A novelist who █████ ██ ████ █ ██████ █████████ ████ █ ██████ ██ █████████ ██████ █████ ████████████████ ██████████ █████ ████ ███████ ██ ██ ████ ███████ ██████ ████ ████ ██████ █████
Leads to wrong conclusion. (B) is designed to help us reach the conclusion that a novelist should avoid sensationalistic spectacles. But the argument doesn’t concern what a novelist should or should not do. It’s about whether contemporary novels have little of social significance. We’re not trying to prove what someone should do.
c
A work of ███ ██ ████████ █████████ ████ ██ ██ ███████ ███ █████ █████████████ ██ ███ █████████
Close, but (C) doesn’t trigger. According to (C), if a work does NOT engage the moral sensibilities of its audience, then it’s not socially important. But we don’t have enough to say that contemporary novels don’t engage the moral sensibilities of its audience. Although we know that the transgressions commited are included for the purpose of making readers wonder what will happen next, that doesn’t suggest that those transgressions or other events or features of the work don’t engage moral sensibilities of the reader. So (C) doesn’t trigger and therefore doesn’t strengthen the argument.
d
If a novel ██████ █ ██████ ██ ██████████ █████████ ████ ███ █████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ██ ████████ ████████████
Leads to wrong conclusion. We’re trying to prove that there’s NOT much of social significance in contemporary novels. (D) is designed to prove that a novel IS socially significant.
e
Novels have social ████████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ████ █████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ █████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████
(E) asserts that a novel’s social significance is depends on how much it allows readers to enter the internal world of the novelist’s mind. So if it does NOT allow readers to enter the internal world of the novelist’s mind, then it does NOT have social significance. (E) is the missing principle that gets us from the premises to “little of social significance” in the conclusion.