Lecture on Pathos
for
English 399: Rhetoric of Religion - Mary Baker Eddy
Instructor: Karen D. Austin * kaustin@shepherd.edu
Shepherd College, Shepherdstown, WV 25443
Pathos Refers to Emotions, Needs, Values. Pathos refers to the elements of a text that appeal to the readers' emotions, needs, and values. Effective rhetoricians think about their audience when creating a text, realizing that a message has no value if the readers don't accept the content. In order for a rhetorician to succeed, the audience must change the way they think and/or act based on the message.
Readers Are Not Robots. Note that the word pathos shares its root with words such as sympathy, empathy and pathetic. Yes, a rhetorician can appeal to the readers' logic; however, the word pathos tends to refer to the audience members' more human qualities: their needs, wants, wishes, emotions, values. One way to define pathos is by applying the term to a popular culture referent. I find that the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) works well. The character Jean-Luc Picard represents Ethos; Data represents Logos; and Counselor Deanna Troy (the ship's empath) represents...to no surprise, Pathos. Unlike the earlier Star Trek series--which elevated logos to a god-like status in Spock--TNG laments the shortcomings of logic by having Data (the ship's android) seek for more human traits.
Pathos can be defined in a myriad of ways, but Maslow provides a handy system for defining basic human needs. Is the rhetorician motivating the audience to seek safety? to belong? to self-actualize? Read this site and others for more information about Maslow's system for defining pathos.
Beauty Appeals to Emotion. When a rhetorician (speaker/author) employs literary devices and other techniques that emphasize the aesthetic dimension of a text, he or she using pathos to appeal to their audience's emotions as well. All other elements being equal, readers will accept the more aesthetically pleasing text. People respond to texts that delight, thrill, seduce, and amaze them. Beauty is often defined in terms of fecundity, which ties readers back to some of the most basic stages of Maslow's hierarchy--although readers may feel at first glance as though beauty transcends humanity, materialism, and corporality altogether. When reading a text, try to see how much the author's overall structure, dominate metaphors, sentence style, combining of clauses and word choice affect your reception of the message. Sometimes symmetry and balance rests at the definition of beauty. Balance relates to health and well being and not just pure logic.
Beauty and Emotion Cannot Be Extracted from Any Text. Rhetoricians understand that all texts combine ethos, logos and pathos. In other words, it's impossible to strip a message free of its appeals. All messages appeal to readers' basic desires. Even though some people see pathos as frosting on a cake, true rhetoricians know that they cannot strip a message from all its appeals and leave "just the cake" behind. A rhetorician would never create a text without this catalyst: human need. There is no purely objective, purely factual, purely logical text in the world. Every scrap of paper, every radio transmission, every uttered speech has a human-created reason for existing, and each of these "texts" strives to meet a human need.
For example, grocery lists (seemingly boring and objective) are made to help get people fed, sometimes as a group, meeting the need to belong as well as the physiological need to eat. Science reports are often generated to help people's needs for safety (improved health). Telephone directories are created in order to help people connect (sense of belonging) or help people engage in commerce (food, shelter, safety). Very seemingly straightforward texts such as philosophical essays, political platforms, and even assembly instructions often employ metaphors in order to convey their ideas. For example, Plato's Phaedrus uses the metaphor of intercourse to describe the legacy of philosophy; Clinton used the metaphor of covenant in the speech he gave at the Democratic Convention for his second bid as president; assembly instructions will use images such as "A frame," "butterfly," and "pair," "twin," or "mate" to describe the parts to be assembled.
Even though ethos, logos, pathos, and context are all interwoven and necessary to a rhetorical analysis of a text, the most "rhetorical" element is probably pathos, since rhetoricians define themselves apart from philosophers and other who create and analyze texts primarily by their hyper-awareness of their audience.