Tuesday, October 4, 2011

ARCS, Chapter 5


Logical proof is one of the most important, if not the most lacking, aspect of communication in the modern arena. While people are often quick to establish themselves with some semblance of pathos ("My sister had an abortion, and it was a traumatizing experience for her, so it should be illegal") or ethos ("Trust me, I'm a doctor), logos is often overlooked in favor of emotional emphasis.

So many arguments fail miserably without logos. The ARCs example is, "the moon orbits around the earth." How would we fathom making this argument without hard evidence and actual proof? A rhetorical probability (eikos) is something that one must deal with when constructing an argument (will giving that speech about abortion make my pro-life colleagues angry? Or will they join in the debate?) These two properties function well together, as eikos is, in a way, a form of logos--although less reliable than mathematical probability.

Deductive reasoning versus induction has always been something I struggled to differentiate (I often got one confused with the other). Now that I've read this chapter, I can say that I don't believe I will have that problem anymore.

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