Persuasion and Rhetoric

One of my goals with Cognitive Apostate is to pick at logical non-sequitirs that people routinely maintain, to mull over issues and try to decide whether they really make sense, and how one ought to think. But here the method is as important as the result. How should we think? How should we come to conclusions? How do we currently think and come to conclusions? We learn based on our inputs, occasionally through unbiased raw data, but more often through some persuasive event.

Fortunately, people have been studying this for millenia and have come to define the art of persuasion and rhetoric (see rhetoric or fallacy links on the sidebar). The three basic elements of persuasion stem from logos, pathos, and ethos. As explained by Gideon Burton at Sliva Rhetoricae.

Logos names the appeal to reason. Aristotle wished that all communication could be transacted only through this appeal, but given the weaknesses of humanity, he laments, we must resort to the use of the other two appeals. The Greek term logos is laden with many more meanings than simply "reason," and is in fact the term used for "oration.

Pathos names the appeal to emotion. Cicero encouraged the use of pathos at the conclusion of an oration, but emotional appeals are of course more widely viable. Aristotle's Rhetoric contains a great deal of discussion of affecting the emotions, categorizing the kinds of responses of different demographic groups. Thus, we see the close relations between assessment of pathos and of audience. Pathos is also the category by which we can understand the psychological aspects of rhetoric. Criticism of rhetoric tends to focus on the overemphasis of pathos, emotion, at the expense of logos, the message.

Ethos names the persuasive appeal of one's character, especially how this character is established by means of the speech or discourse. Aristotle claimed that one needs to appear both knowledgeable about one's subject and benevolent. Cicero said that in classical oratory the initial portion of a speech (its exordium or introduction) was the place to establish one's credibility with the audience.

Good orators will mix and match the three forms. I haven't yet looked at my writing, but I suspect my engineering and scientific training (as well as having been raised by an engineer) make me heavy on logos. Scientists codified logos by institutionalizing the scientific method. They rarely entertain arguments of pathos or ethos (though it does happen in animal testing and a few other places). The downside of too much logos is that it is pretty darn boring. (Wait did I say engineers and scientists are boring?) Logos has driven technology to new heights and is the backbone of impartiality and proof in law. Anyway, I'm a big advocate of logos. So my thought is to track how these three tools are used in arguments of the day, and maybe pull apart arguments that pesuade me and try to figure out how they do it.