Introduction
Logos is Greek for "reason." As the name of a mode of persuasion, it refers to an argument using reason; thus it's an argument one "sees the reason" in, not an argument one "feels the emotion" in, as in, say, the pathos mode, nor is it an argument that depends in some way on the perception of the arguer's character, as in ethos. In literature, literary persuasion must of necessity be rational; that is, in order to be logical and believable, a character must "reason" with the reader, and the reader must be able to "see" the reasons in a character's or author's argument for doing x rather than y in this or that particular set of circumstances. But, while in ordinary discourse, there will obviously be many different kinds of reason; for example, a good scientific reason will greatly differ from, say, a good literary or moral reason. For our purposes in this section - to separate "logos the mode of persuasion" from the "logical/rational discourse as the character of literary reasoning," the "kind" of reason will be considered secondary because literature is a genre and as such is defined by its kind of reasoning to which truth and validity are subordinated to persuasion (reasonableness).
We want to be able to determine whether and how that "reason" might fulfill and maintain ethos (or "credibility") in a character or author's argument enough to qualify as persuasion. We also want to begin our sense of literary logos in ways that will allow us to separate the peculiar features of logos in literature. The convention of logos has a long history in Western tradition and derives from classical rhetoric. Aristotle defined rhetoric as the faculty of observing in any given situation the available means of persuasion. According to Aristotle, there are three primary modes of persuasion: ethos, the argument that rests on the authority or credibility of the speaker; pathos, the argument that appeals to the reader's or listener's emotions or is the argument that arouses the feelings of its audience in order to create ethos; and finally, logos, the argument in which the author or speaker uses trustworthy evidence to create a reliable argument. Logos, as an appeal to an audience's logic, was then institutionalized throughout Western rhetoric up to the present day. In business rhetoric, an author's use of logos is when he or she supports a potentially disputable statement with a fact, statistics, historical analogy, etc. Such use of evidence creates and maintains the ethos of a speaker as the one who is reliable, i.e., who doesn't rely merely on the use of passionate appeal to play on the readers' or listeners' fear, guilt, desire, anger, pity, etc. to supposedly support an argument (by playing on emotions and manipulating "images presented by discourse" with little or no concern for logic).
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
The Role of Logos
Persuasion and argumentation come in many forms: speeches, advertisements, legal proceedings, advice columns, and everyday conversations. One way that people can influence the thoughts and actions of others is through logical argumentation, or logos, which refers to the use of reason and evidence in persuasion. Arguments that go through logical processes are considered sound, while those that fail are the result of logical fallacies, or flaws in reasoning, that can make an argument weak or, worst of all, false. The absence of sound argumentation is what makes outrageous claims seem so unconvincing: a belief, as extraordinary as it may be, can be legitimately justified by the evidence used to support it. Writers and speakers are encouraged to make the logical reasoning in their work clear and to support that logic with relevant examples, as these time-honored features of argumentation are still essential in the 21st century. As audiences feel more secure in the soundness of an argument, they become more likely to agree or take action accordingly.
Clarity and coherence are the hallmarks of logical argumentation, but they are also integral to other areas of persuasive writing, including narrative and emotional appeals. A story that follows an unpredictable timeline or that abandons a key conflict two-thirds of the way through, for example, will strike readers as messy, boring, or unpolished even if the story is honest at its core. By the same token, a logical argument that lacks structure or follow-through seems scattershot and distracting. By this logic, improving your logical reasoning will also improve your work in other persuasive spheres. Understanding how to develop a logical appeal is also essential for critical reading and analysis. When we read for comprehension, we need to be sure that the information we are receiving is accurate, reliable, and persuasive. By taking the time to analyze an argument based on how well the writer uses logos, readers can determine how they feel about the conclusions or advice offered.
Analyzing Logos in "Julius Caesar"
Logos, the literary device of using reasoning through logical argument, is used prominently in a number of the speeches and dialogues in Julius Caesar. Each of the rhetorical strategies is especially important for two key figures, those who exemplify the "good of the state" and the "good of the people," to determine what the "good of the people" is for the sake of political conflict. Even more important, since logos yields the effectiveness of a rhetorical strategy, the text fills Caesar with discussions of the ascendants of speaking and the basis of logic in relation to the truth of the physical body. Julius Caesar begins with two personages using logos to disagree with one another.
Most people in the world think with the handful of their communication strategies through logical arguments. The play Julius Caesar is no exception. The exchanges between Brutus and Cassius as well as Brutus and Antony are full of logical arguments. Specifically, these two influential men attempt to convince Brutus to join their side in a coming civil war among the Roman people. When Brutus listens to their conversations, he responds with his own logical arguments. They do not reply with passion or reason, suggesting that they have no position to stand on, as an individual or as an argument. From a modern rhetorical perspective, the text beautifully depicts competing conceptions of how to deal with moral and ethical dilemmas when using logos. One of the central conceits of Julius Caesar would be most effective not in a highly charged emotional argument, but in one of scrupulous logical acumen.
Logos in Other Literary Works
Shakespeare’s play "Julius Caesar" uses logos, the appeal to reason, to persuade readers that killing Caesar for the good of the state is a logical decision. In "Julius Caesar," Cassius judging a man by his leg and other uses of logic is seen as foolish and rejected. Instead, Shakespeare uses logos at the emotional level. But a question arises: does one use logos, the appeal to reason, in works of literature other than Shakespeare's plays? Several other works of literature have also used the logos of Aristotle. One can recall the logical method of organization in this list, the rhetorical method, or the peripatetic method of organization used in modern argumentative essays. With added elements of evidence and emotion, scientific writings would want to start with inductive method, down to modern works of fiction like detective novels, which generally introduce the reader to a problem and give the evidence in order to solve the problem, with a lot of logical reasoning thrown in.
The logos from Aristotle is a universal appeal to reason and rationalism. It is neither prosaic nor poetic and represents the middle path between the two. The three pieces of literary works we will take to illustrate the use of logos for good and for bad are from different cultures and span different times in history. But let us look first at how modern contemporary argumentative essays use Aristotle’s logos. Aristotle’s logos is used in different ways by modern essay writers. It is either the only method of logical organization, borders on Aristotle's peripatetic method, or logos are an important part of the evidence that is given to support the thesis. Emotions may also be used as evidence for an argument, and logos are generally augmented by a lot of pathos as well.
Conclusion
Over the course of this text, I have shown how the use of rational persuasion is depicted as an art of power in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and also that primarily educated early modern audiences, the leading strata of Jacobean England, were meant to be able to recognize a rational argument from a rhetorical one. These claims are based on a broad overview of early modern works of advice literature. These early modern works consistently advocate a pedagogy of logical rather than rhetorical thinking, and they also consistently characterize the various forms of bad arguments as emanating from “sophists,” “sophistical,” or “sophistical” thinking. It is true that scholarly studies often make these overall claims about the practice and the doctrine of education in early modern England; yet they stress the selective survival and stability of an elite culture of print that has often been circumscribed as a fault line of early modern England’s social history. This text adds that early modern drama also dealt with the distinction between rational and rhetorical thinking and that it staged some of the consequences.
In conclusion: logos is not simply a form or kind. Logos is primarily a relation – a certain mode of connection, concatenation, proportion, or disposition – that is discernible in definable accordance with the scheme of rhetorical relations as they are staged at specific dramatic moments. All of this means that for us, the readers and critics of literature, the category of logos in drama not only has the potential to add complexity to scholarly discussions concerning what critics less able to recognize rational from rhetorical persuasion discuss under the rubric of the author-function and authorial intention. It also allows us, by the literary and critical disposition of a close-reading aesthetic, to take the focus off plays as multidimensional authored works and situate our discussion within the domain of social semiotics.
Using a historical hermeneutic, we might, for example, examine the range of rhetorical strategies signified or otherwise staged in a play in relation to specific literary conventions, the ideological expectations of a specific implied or, rather, targeted reader, or the narrative strategies that were often depicted as having led to the writing of the sort of text that the play was thought to instantiate. Whether a reading of this kind could also be a reading against the ‘author’ comes under the heading of authorial intention and textual meaning, a topic on which I have no brief, except to note that a logos reading method would commend a different approach since logos, pathos, and ethos are so interwoven as to constitute the texture and images of our daily lives. Ultimately, the logos/argument of a play may indeed operate in a “field of relations,” but it is a field in which some arguments are more consequential than others.
Stuck on your essay?
