Rhetoric and Logic Black Label Logic | January 31, 2016 | by Black Label Logic ------------------------- [rhetoric]This is inspired by a comment I got from Ontologicalrealist [http://logicandmysticism.wordpress.com/] who asked me about the quote: _“for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” (Our discussion in the comments [https://blacklabellogic.wordpress.com/2016/01/25/fun-with-fallacies-stop-repeating-yourself/])_ The quote is often attributed to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi head of propaganda, and thus a brilliant rhetorician. The major difference between logic and rhetoric, is that the purpose of logic is to explore ideas, find new truths, remain rational and objective in your reasoning, and contributing to knowledge. The purpose of rhetoric is to communicate ideas, persuade and to “sell”. I’m going to start by breaking down rhetoric in the same way I did logic in “The basics of logic 1 [https://blacklabellogic.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/the-basics-of-logic-part-1/]” and “The basics of logic 2 [https://blacklabellogic.wordpress.com/2016/01/17/basics-of-logic-part-2/]” Aristotle breaks rhetoric into 3 parts: * LOGOS – meaning “discourse” or “reasoned discourse” * PATHOS – emotional appeals to the audience * ETHOS – the character of the speaker Rhetoric is a highly studied field, and has been broken down by many and there are many explanations and breakdowns that differ from the one I’ve used here, however my opinion is that this breakdown gives the clearest picture of what rhetoric is at it’s core. Logos, or reasoned discourse, can be said to be logical and fact based. However, it doesn’t have to be. It can be valid but not sound, it can suffer from logical fallacies, or many other problems. It is therefore always important to apply critical thinking to any argument made. Pathos, or the emotional appeals, very often make up the core of the rhetoricians overall communication. Emotional appeals in various forms, from anecdotes, appeals to emotion, identity plays, are effective because they add familiarity and makes the speaker likable to the audience. It is much easier to convince someone who likes you, and they are less likely to engage their critical thinking. Ethos, or the character of the speaker, adds legitimacy to the pathos and logos. For instance, by having the title “Dr.” adds to credibility, so does having experience and/or education within the field that you are speaking within. However, “Ethos” to some extent has a transitive property. This is frequently seen when famous people take up causes outside of their field, such as Emma Watson for women, or Matt Damon for clean water. Their opinions and words are more credible because the person is famous, despite not having any qualifications and little experience on the topic. SOME KEY TIPS FOR TELLING RHETORIC FROM LOGIC: * Look for qualifying words, rhetoric very rarely has qualifying words (some, maybe, opinion, etc) logic is full of them. * Look for the emotional appeal, is the speaker actively trying to play on people’s emotions through voice use, loaded words, appealing to “romanticism” or identities. * Would the speech be effective regardless of who speaks or is it effective because of who speaks? ------------------------- Archived from https://theredarchive.com/blog/Black-Label-Logic/rhetoric-and-logic.24377