Rhetoric, Aristotle’s: Pathos

In Rhetoric, Aristotle defined pathos in terms of a public speaker putting the audience in the right frame of mind by appealing to the audience’s emotions. He further defined emotion as states of mind involving pleasure and pain, which in turn influence our perceptions. Pathos is one of three types of rhetorical appeals for persuading an audience; the others are logos (logic or the argument itself) and ethos (character or trustworthiness of the speaker). While Aristotle developed lengthy explanations of pathos, he also cautioned against appeals to emotion. He argued that appeals to emotion should not be used to influence (distort) audiences’ opinions, comparing using emotional appeals to influence audiences with the analogy of measuring distance with a crooked ruler. Rather, the speaker should focus on the facts of the case to avoid distorting audience views through nonlogical appeals. Aristotle’s concepts were the primary influence on later rhetorical theory and method. This entry describes Aristotle’s procedure for how a speaker might analyze an audience to create emotional appeal, and the role of audience age, the speaker’s use of voice, and language choices. Finally, the entry explains the use of Aristotle’s concept of pathos in communication research of 20th and 21st centuries.

In Book II of Rhetoric, Aristotle indicated that the speaker must know three things about the audience to create the proper emotion: (1) the mental state of the person who is experiencing the particular emotion, (2) with whom they experience that emotion, and (3) the actions that create the emotion. Analyzing these three elements allows the speaker to elicit the desired emotion from the audience. Thus, the primary way to persuade an audience through emotional appeal is to apply this approach to a specific desired emotion.

To demonstrate the three-part approach to eliciting audience emotion, Aristotle outlined contrasting sets of emotions, including anger versus mildness, love and friendship versus hatred, fear versus confidence, shame versus shamelessness, benevolence and pity versus indignation, and envy or emulation versus contempt. Each emotion can be evoked in the audience using the three-part approach and by understanding the opposite emotion. For example, Aristotle defined love or friendship as wishing good for others for their sake, rather than for one’s own sake. Loved ones include lovers, friends, and relatives. In applying the three-part analysis, Aristotle described the mental state of love/friendship as taking pleasure in the success of others and being pained by the failures of friends. He described in detail those persons who elicit the emotion in an individual, including friends of [Page 1483]friends, enemies of enemies, others who provide a benefit, and those who have even tempers; are pleasant to spend time with; are humorous and engaging; who praise us; do not hold grudges; and have similar desires. Aristotle explained the causes of friendship as doing favors for others without being asked and without proclaiming the good deed publicly, doing deeds exclusively for the benefit of the friend. The contrasting emotion is hatred/enmity, which stems from anger. To understand how to elicit enmity or hatred in the audience, the speaker must look at the opposites of the arguments for love and friendship.

...