Rhetoric A–Z / Ethos, pathos and logos

What are ethos, pathos and logos?

The three concepts ethos, pathos and logos form the core of rhetoric, because they are what Aristotle called πίστεις (pisteis), the means of persuasion: the ways a speaker or sender has at their disposal to convince an audience that a thesis and a message are true and right. Ethos concerns how the speaker uses their character, pathos how the speaker affects the audience’s emotions, and logos how the speaker persuades through words, tropes, and arguments.

Before Aristotle

Although Aristotle was the first to formulate and define the three means of persuasion, many before him had already reflected on the power of language to persuade. Not least his teacher Plato, who in dialogues such as the Phaedrus examined how language leads souls, what he called ψυχαγωγία (psychagogia). Whoever is to lead a soul, that is, to persuade someone, must according to Plato have beheld the truth themselves, so as not to lead the soul astray. They must also know the different kinds of souls, their weaknesses and strengths, in order to lead them in the right way (271c–d).

Another thinker who reflected deeply on persuasion was the great sophist Gorgias. In his encomium of the beautiful Helen, he calls logos a mighty lord, which with the smallest and most invisible body accomplishes the most divine deeds: it can stop fear, remove grief, create joy and increase pity (§ 8). The effect of speech on the soul, he says, is like the effect of drugs on the body (§ 14). Here we find a theory not only of the power of logos, but of how it works together with pathos to affect a listener.

Finally, we can turn to Gorgias’ pupil, the Athenian teacher of rhetoric Isocrates, who stressed that anyone who “wishes to persuade people will not be negligent as to character; on the contrary, he will apply himself above all to establishing a most honourable name among his fellow citizens” (Antidosis 278 [trans. Norlin). Isocrates, in other words, was well aware of the role of ethos in persuasion.

The core of rhetoric

The three concepts ethos, pathos and logos were coined almost 2,400 years ago by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. In the Rhetoric, he points out that the authors of the rhetorical handbooks of his day had focused so much on side issues, such as how best to manipulate the judge in a court case, that they had failed to see that ethos, pathos and logos are the real core of rhetoric (1354a). He called them rhetoric’s three πίστεις (pisteis), means of persuasion, which a speaker uses to convince the audience that the thesis and message are true, and that in their κρίσις (krisis), their judgement, they should follow the speaker’s advice.

This is why he defined the aim of rhetoric as precisely krisis (1377b), whether it concerned the people’s judgement on political questions, the judges’ judgement on legal questions, or the audience’s verdict on a speech of praise or blame.

Artistic and inartistic proofs

Aristotle held that a speaker always has two kinds of proof available: the inartistic and the artistic (1355b). The former are not primarily about influencing and persuading through language, but are available before the speech begins, such as witnesses, laws and contracts. In a court case about who is the rightful owner of something, being able to produce a signed contract of sale is undoubtedly a strong inartistic proof.

The artistic proofs, that is, ethos, pathos and logos, are those we use in the speech itself (or, speaking of today, in the text, the video, the image and so on) to persuade an audience. It is therefore important to stress that, at least for Aristotle, the artistic proofs are created in and through the speech. Aristotle thus assumed that the speaker has no ethos, and the audience no pathos, before the speech begins. This idea has been criticised by modern rhetorical theorists, who argue that we also need to consider the ethos a speaker brings into the situation, for instance when the audience already holds firm views about the speaker. A distinction is therefore often made between initial ethos, which the speaker brings along, and derived ethos, which is created in the speech.

No recipe book

It is important to remember that Aristotle himself is very clear that he is not offering a recipe book for how readers can succeed in persuading with their own speeches. The very idea that such a book could be written seems absurd to him, since every situation is different. An argument that persuades a particular audience at a particular moment need not persuade the same people at a later time, since they may by then have experienced things that make the argument no longer seem credible. There is, then, no art of rhetoric that gives us tools to persuade anyone of anything in every situation.

What Aristotle did instead was to map the ways in which speakers in the assembly, the courts, the banquet halls and at the funerals of Athens tried to persuade, in order to categorise and systematise them and formulate a theory of how persuasion works. What he found was that speakers use their character (ethos), that they arouse or calm certain emotions in the audience (pathos), and that they use language and arguments (logos).

Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.

Aristotle, Rhetoric 1356a, trans. W. Rhys Roberts

After Aristotle

When Greece became part of the Roman world, the Romans took over much of the Greek rhetorical tradition, while changing a good deal of it. For the great orator and rhetorical theorist Cicero, the orator’s three tasks became docere, delectare and movere: to teach, to delight and to move (Orator 69). The focus thereby shifted towards what the speech is meant to do to its audience, rather than what happens in the speech itself.

Quintilian, often counted as the first state-salaried teacher of rhetoric in Rome, spoke of ethos and pathos as two kinds of emotion: a gentler and more lasting one (ethos) and a briefer and more violent one (pathos). He even held that they were of the same nature and differed only in degree, so that for instance love is pathos while affection is ethos (Institutio oratoria 6.2.8–12). Ethos was also so important to Quintilian that he defined the orator as vir bonus dicendi peritus, a good man skilled in speaking (12.1.1).

Today

Over the more than two thousand years that rhetoric has been a discipline in the West, the concepts have changed. This can be seen, for instance, in the often repeated claim that logos means facts and logic. It can, of course, but that is a drastic simplification of what Aristotle meant by the word.

People also sometimes speak of ethos, pathos and logos arguments, as if there were arguments that address or use character, emotion and logic respectively. This too is a problematic division, since many individual arguments have a dimension of ethos, pathos and logos at once. Suppose, for example, that we want to support the thesis “Climate change is already extensive” with the argument “Scientists have shown that Arctic ice is melting ever faster and that the Arctic may be ice-free in summer within the coming decades.” The argument has an ethos dimension, since it refers to scientists; a logos dimension, since it is an argument by example (παράδειγμα, paradeigma); and a pathos dimension, since an imminent threat speaks to our emotions.

The same goes for the so-called rhetorical triangle, which places speaker, audience and message at its three corners. It is often attributed to Aristotle, but it is a model from twentieth-century teaching. Aristotle never drew a triangle, and his Rhetoric is far richer than the three means of persuasion.

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