Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Ethos, pathos, and logos are the three classical appeals named at the core of Kyle’s Rhetoric page, which defines rhetoric as “the study of the means by which the classic authors deployed the arts of persuasion (ethos, pathos, logos).” They are the canonical triad of persuasion: appeal to character/credibility (ethos), to emotion (pathos), and to reason/argument (logos). The Rhetoric page connects pathos in particular to Thymos — “the spirited, persuasive register rhetoric appeals to” and “the drive for recognition” — and treats the whole apparatus as central to the essay We Need a Renaissance of Rhetoric, where rhetoric is “the battleground where language is sharpened into perspective.”

Context: The triad comes from Aristotle’s Rhetoric, which identifies three modes of artistic proof: ethos (the speaker’s perceived character and trustworthiness), pathos (the emotional state the speech arouses in the audience), and logos (the logic and substance of the argument itself). They remain the standard framework taught in rhetoric and composition.

Where this appears

• Rhetoric — named directly in the page’s one-line definition as the three arts of persuasion; pathos linked to thymos and the drive for recognition.