ARISTOTLE

Statue of Aristotle (1915) by Cipri Adolf Bermann

  

Aristotle is a Greek philosopher, the student of  Plato and the teacher of  Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, poetry,

theater, logic, rhetoric, politics…Together with Plato and  Socrates(Plato’s teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures inWestern Philosophy.

His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic.  Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises

and dialogues , too bad that the majority of his writings are now lost or misplaced .

One of the subjects Aristotle wrote is Rhetorics which is now used in a lot the advertisment propagandas arround the world. The rhetoric devices are used to study the art of using language effectively. According to Aristotle,  Rhetorics consist of three basic components: logos , ethos, and pathos.

Logos represents the author’s ability to reveal logic and reason in the text .

Ethos  represents the author’s ability to reveal his or her credibility in the text.

Finally  pathos represents the author’s ability to appeal to the audience through the text.

Logos is used in advertisment to appeal to the person’s brain and rationality and not to his senses. The advertisers use facts ,case studies, statistics, experiments, logical reasoning ,analogies,and anecdotes  to sell the product they are using.

Pathos is used in advertisment to appeal to the person’s emotions and sensitivity and not to the brain. The advertisers play on our emotions and our ethics like belief in fairness, love, pity, greed ,lust, revenge ,avarious…

Ethos is used in advertisment to appeal to the person’s ethics and the way he views the ideas. The advertisers here play on our senses .Trustworthiness, credibility, reliablity, expert testimony ,reliable sources, fairness are the point they focus on the most.

 Sandra Sawaya

~ by wordpros on May 9, 2009.