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How does Socrates apply ethos, pathos, and logos in his arguments?
Quick answer:
Socrates primarily employs logos, or logical reasoning, in his arguments, often avoiding pathos, emotional appeals, and ironically downplaying his own ethos, or authority. He claims to seek truth rather than possess it, enhancing his credibility through humility. Socrates believes debates should be won through logic, as seen in dialogues like "Meno," where he uses logical methods, such as geometry, to explore concepts like innate knowledge.
The previous educator response does a great job of answering this question.
I'd like to add to her response by giving brief definitions of ethos, pathos
and logos, along with a couple examples of their use by Socrates.
Ethos, pathos and logos are categories of argumentation or rhetorical appeal
characterized by their use of different kinds of support for an argument.
Ethos, from which we derive our English word, "ethics", is an appeal to the
credibility or authority of the speaker. Ironically, Socrates often denies any
knowledge of his own, claiming to ask questions because he is seeking a truth
he has not yet acquired.
Pathos is an appeal to emotion for the sake of convincing an audience of the
correctness of one's claim. The previous educator response indicates that
Socrates deliberately avoids emotional appeals in his argumentation, which is
absolutely correct. Socrates feels strongly that debates should be won by logic
and sound reasoning rather than emotion or appeals to authority. For this
reason, he primarily uses Logos, or logical arguments, to support his
positions. This can be seen in all of Plato's renderings of Socrates's
dialogues, one strong example being in the Menos when Socrates uses
geometry and directed learning to illustrate the notion of innate
knowledge.
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