Pathos and Logos discussion

Pathos is… Attempt to utilize wants, needs or values that are shared by all, such as safety, wellness, personal liberty, loyalty, and so on. Pathos is an argument based on emotion, playing on sympathy, fears, and desires. The Say "NO!" To Acme! page is pathos-based because it relies on an emotional response from the people reading it. By stressing the helplessness of the (endangered) turtle, it attempts to sway people to its side, against the "commericial hordes" of Acme. A lot of advertisements are Pathos driven. creating a sense of rejection if the audience doesn't agree. Creating a fear of rejection is in essence, creating a pathos argument.

Everyone with a sound mind would agree….

No one would ever……

This is obviously a terrible thing

Never, always,

He wants to hurt her by cutting medicare

Can you identify pathos in this advertisement? Click and discuss:

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/BH/BH19/BH1920-72dpi.jpeg

A good example of a pathos advertisement would be for diet pills. In these advertisements they try and persuade you into buying their product by stirring up many different emotions. They make you feel guilt, and take pity on yourself because you are fat. They also use lust as a way of showing you what you could look like in a bikini and the attractive men that would suddenly notice you. Then they try and make you feel motivated about losing weight, at least long enough to buy their product.

Logos is---using logic to persuade

There are two types of logical argument, inductive and deductive. In an inductive argument, the reader holds up a specific example, and then claims that what is true for it is also true for a general category. For instance, "I have just tasted this lemon. It is sour. Therefore, all lemons are probably sour." Deductive reasoning works in the opposite manner; it begins with a general or universal rule accepted by most people ("all lemons are sour") and then applies that claim to a specific example. ("That is a lemon. Therefore, it too must be sour.")

A good example of a logos commercial would be the stop smoking tobacco ads. In these commercials they are trying to talk you out of smoking cigarettes by giving factual statistics about what smoking can do to your health. The whole argument is giving evidence on the dangers of tobacco. They even go as far as having bags in the road representing how many people die everyday from tobacco. I have found their tactics to have a very powerful effect on people who have seen the commercials.

Can you identify Logos in this advertisement? Click and discuss:

Logos http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/W/W01/W0128-72dpi.jpeg

Please now click this link http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/browse.html and find your own advertisement that demonstrates Pathos. Also, find one that demonstrates logos.