Logos, Pathos and Ethos

Almost a year ago, I came across an idea and I was intrigued by it. The idea was from the ancient philosopher Aristotle, who claimed that people's beliefs are influenced by numerous different factors- specifically factors relating to Logos, Pathos and Ethos. This clearly has importance when looking at communication and persuasion, and that's the context in which I came across the idea: I found a book titled "How to Argue Like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator".

Shortly after finding this book online and becoming fascinated by Aristotle's idea about beliefs, I attended a talk by Dr John Dickson. Little did I know beforehand, that Dickson uses these ideas in his presentations on Jesus as well- although in an entirely different context to the "How to Argue" book. After hearing Dickson's presentation, I decided I had to go out and buy the "How to Argue" book, and find out more about the Logos, Pathos and Ethos idea.

Dickson's presentation was about the evidence for Jesus Resurrection, but one theme he hit on during his talk was the idea that skeptics need to be honest enough to admit that their beliefs are influenced by several factors other than the intellectual element. He recently wrote an article which neatly presents some of these thoughts on this theme which he discussed during the talk I attended last year.

Click here to read the article, titled "The Way We Believe".

(Note: as with any online article most of the comments miss the point, disagree and abuse but don't provide any reasons why they actually disagree, or discuss something entirely irrelevant to the article actually written):

Quote of the day

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle
Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)

I heard this quote a while ago, and it's stuck with me. I looked it up today and was surprised to find the exact wording. I'd remembered something or other about holding ideas in tension- perhaps the author quoting this was talking about that. So for mine, I'll reword to this: "The mark of an educated mind is having the ability to hold ideas in tension without accepting them".

I think this is true, simply because of the sheer bulk of ideas one will get exposed to as they journey through life. As one learns more, experiences more and becomes more educated they'll inevitably be exposed to a plethora of ideas, ideologies, arguments, philosophies and views. Yet, we don't always have the time or the willpower to form our own view on every one of them. Furthermore, there's a certain wisdom in having the ability to refrain from holding to an opinion- sitting on the fence is fine from time to time. Having the ability to hold two ideas in tension, whilst weighing up the possibilities can also bring a certain calm.