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.