The Museum of Modern Art in New York City contains several automobiles

Question

The Museum of Modern Art in New York City contains several automobiles. Automobiles are means of transportation and are therefore not art. The automobiles should not be in the collection. Which of the following best underlies the reasoning in the argument above.

(A) The automobiles will not be used as transportation because they are in a museum, so they can be counted as art.
(B) Many features of automobiles, like fins, serve no practical purpose and therefore cars can be counted as art
(C) A true artist works without commercial concerns.
(D) Art must be designed without pragmatic utility.
(C) The automobile industry has excessive costs because of focusing on design rather and cost and pragmatism.

Mavisdu1017 · Answer

Sorry I feel D strengthens the reasoning? Automobiles are NOT art cuz they have pragmatic utility (means of transportation). To weaken that, we should say art can be with pragmatic utility, but D says Art must be without pragmatic utility.
Anybody can help?

Abhishek009 · Answer

Bro consider it this way, it is a   DEDUCTIVE REASONING  ...

The first 2 sentences are the premises on which the conclusion holds !!!, and we are asked to find out the reasoning/method adopted by the author/speaker to reach the specific Conclusion....

Hopw this helps, this is not at all a STRENGTHEN/WEAKEN type question....

Mavisdu1017 · Answer

Abhishek009  God I confused “underlie” with “undermine”, so I thought it is a weaken-type question...My bad.
Thanks bro.

Rishmadhu · Answer

Argument:
Premise: Automobiles are means of transportation.
Claim: Because automobiles are transportation devices, they are not art.
Conclusion: Therefore, automobiles should not be in the museum's art collection.
This argument rests on the idea that:

If something is designed primarily as a means of transportation (pragmatic use), it cannot be considered art.

What does this imply about the principle underlying the argument?
The argument assumes that art cannot have pragmatic utility or art must be free of practical function.
Now, let's evaluate the answer choices:
(A) The automobiles will not be used as transportation because they are in a museum, so they can be counted as art.

This challenges the argument's conclusion by saying that since cars aren’t used as transportation inside the museum, they could be art — the opposite of what the argument rests on.

So this does not underlie the argument; it goes against it.

(B) Many features of automobiles, like fins, serve no practical purpose and therefore cars can be counted as art.

Again, this supports the idea that cars can be art, opposing the argument's conclusion.

Not the principle the argument depends on.

(C) A true artist works without commercial concerns.

This is about artist motivation, unrelated to whether an object with utility can be art.

Not relevant.

(D) Art must be designed without pragmatic utility.

This fits perfectly with the argument's principle: since cars have pragmatic utility (transportation), they cannot be art.

This underlies the reasoning.

(E) The automobile industry has excessive costs because of focusing on design rather than cost and pragmatism.

Irrelevant to the question of the nature of art or whether automobiles can be art.

Hence, D is answer

The Museum of Modern Art in New York City contains several automobiles

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The Museum of Modern Art in New York City contains several automobiles

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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