Not necessary, because “impartiality” (as in being unbiased) is a concept that has nothing to do with the reasoning. We know that in order to get an intuitive grasp of emotions, one cannot be an academic, but it’s not clear why that would have any relationship to being impartial.

Not necessary, because the author wasn’t arguing that novelists in academia lack powers of observation and analysis and that this is why they can’t be great. The author acknowledges that novelists might bevelop those powers in academia; what matters is that they can’t develop an intuitive grasp of everyday emotions.

Not necessary, because being “impartial” (as in being unbiased) is a concept that has nothing to do with the reasoning. We know that in order to get an intuitive grasp of emotions, one cannot be an academic, but it’s not clear why that would have any relationship to being impartial. Also, the argument concerns what’s necessary to be great, not what is sufficient to make novelists great.

Necessary, because if this were not true — if novelists CAN be great even if they DON’T have an intuitive grasp of emotions of everyday life — then we have no reason to think that novelists in academia can’t become great. Although academia deprives them of an intutive grasp of emotions, if that isn’t needed to be great, then maybe they can still be great.

Not necessary, because we know that an INTUITIVE GRASP of emotions can’t be acquired in academia. Even if an academic can develop KNOWLEDGE of emotions, they still cannot develop an INTUITIVE GRASP of emotions.