Ethos, Pathos, and Logos The Rhetorical Triangle (10/3)

So today in class we learned a refresher in the rhetorical triangle. There are three parts to the rhetorical triangle. 3 sides of a triangle three parts of the triangle. The three pieces of the rhetorical triangle are from ancient Greece and founded by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. The three pieces of the triangle are as follows; Ethos-credibility  Logos-Logic  Pathos- Emotion When these were founded by Aristotle he was mainly focused on logic because rhetoric cannot be argumentative without facts and statistics and overall logic. Now talking about the current time period that is getting studied in our class (rationalism from the mid 18th century to 19th) they also focus on logic the same as Aristotle but they also focus on ethos and almost ignore pathos. Since this time period is focusing solely on rationalism, almost everything argued requires a scientific basis with facts and stats. But the speaker must be credible for people to actually believe him/her. This is where ethos, or credibility comes in. Now this does not mean that pathos was never used. Pathos can be use to argue something that is controversial or gets the crowd riled up. By tying in pieces of evidence that make an audience feel something can be very helpful in swaying the vote.
All of these parts of the rhetorical triangle are essential to today's arguments. The arguments today require ethos for people to listen and logos for factual evidence so the argument at hand actually has reason. pathos can be used at times, and can actually be very powerful under the circumstances. Pathos is often used during speeches or rallies to inspire and rile the audience. Even the patriotism that we all feel to our country is reliant on pathos. The pride and honor we feel for being Americans is a perfect example of ethos. So this is most of what we did in class, but as always a highly recommend you check in with Mr. Rivers or a classmate to get the missed notes.