Aristotelian Appeals: Ethos, pathos, and logos
Ethos, pathos, and logos are the 3 modes of persuasion according to Aristotle. Ethos appeals to the credibility of the arguers, logos appeals to the logic, and pathos appeals to the emotion. The 3 work in tandem to create strong persuasive arguments. It is important for you to take each one into account. You don't want to argue for something based on your emotions that isn't logically sound, but you also don't want to argue for something that is logically sound that might anger or offend someone. And it won't matter how logical and agreeable your argument is if your audience doesn't trust you or find you credible. In other words, you have to remember that your audience is human and humans have a tendency to think both with their heads and their hearts. When we performed the exercise today, we determined which people were absolutely needed because of their skills and the use we could put those skills to. Here we used both ethos and logos. We need food, and James is a farmer, so James can stay. We also had to take into account the emotional impact losing a child may have on some of the people so we chose to keep the families together. That is pathos with a little bit of logos thrown in since we can suppose that this people might be less willing to help us if we killed their children. You want to make sure that any formal (and sometimes informal) argument you present appeals to all 3 modes of persuasion because they are all valid.
Homework
- Finish up your drafts of your analysis papers
- Come to class with a community you belong to and a potential issue that community faces.
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