After reading Aristotle's first book in his Rhetoric, I found the 9th chapter to be very interesting as he described all the various elements of what we now know of as ethos. He began this chapter by defining what is noble, and what is virtue and how the two tie into each other. The writing talks about how things that are noble are good, and things that are of virtue are pleasant due to their being good. Therefore, if one takes heed to these things and sticks to them than others will believe them simply because good things cannot be blamed.
This stood out to me in the terms of argument because according to Aristotle, if we consider what things are considered as noble and virtuous by others, and apply these elements to our argument then our "hearers will take the required view of our own characters"(197). This means that if we conform our argument to what is accepted as good to our audience, then they will be persuaded by what we have to say. Aristotle goes on to explain the power of ethos, and how it not only works to persuade regarding human and divine things, but also works in arguments that involve the most minuscule things of importance, or inanimate objects.
I also talked about Aristotle expect I focused on pathos. I totally agree with your take on the idea of ethos. This idea is a powerful one that being able to find a commonplace with our audience can be a driving factor in a successful argument. It is important to have ethos in an argument in order to influence the audience and even to get them to listen to you. Ethos is goes hand in hand with pathos. Pathos to hook the audience and ethos to drive the point home.
ReplyDeleteI also found this chapter to be interesting and I felt like what Aristotle wrote about conforming our arguments to what is accepted as good to our audience (finding a common place)was an important part of this chapter. In my blog, I wrote about the importance of a common place in rhetoric. Finding a common place with the intended audience allows the rhetor to create a clear, strong argument to base a persuasive argument off of.
ReplyDelete