As should be clear from the discussion of ethos and pathos, logos (or "logic" / "reason") has become the God-term in writing and argument in the 20th Century. Thanks to our increased dependence on science and the scientific method, as well as the technological advances in calculating statistics ("facts") and conducting research, people are more prepared than ever to trust numbers. When George W. Bush and Al Gore were trying to persuade Americans to vote for them in the fall of 2000, they both argued for increased "accountability" in schools, and this accountability would come through more "objective testing" of students. It would be hard to get through K-12 education without already experiencing a battery of tests, but the belief that these tests and their numerical, statistical data could demonstrate "learning" or "knowledge" or "intelligence" in school-aged children and encourage teachers to teach better was built on what has become a commonplace in contemporary "logical" arguments: appeal to statistics.
But logos is not just statistics. In fact, ancient rhetoricians would have been quite skeptical of such "facts" and even argued that the job of the rhetor was not to trot out facts (because to do so involved no art, was atechnoi in the Greek) but to look for methods of persuasion within the language itself. These methods of persuasion can take several shapes, such as the syllogism or enthymeme, and they can be inductive or deductive in form.
A syllogism has three parts: a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. Here's a rather classic example of a deductive syllogism:
All people are mortal.
Socrates is a person.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
Notice the major premise sets the stage and does it from a general observation: "all people are mortal." This statement, as far as we can tell, is true. The minor premise recasts one term from the major premise and narrows the scope: "Socrates is a person." Likewise, unless we could prove otherwise, this statement about Socrates's personhood would be true. Therefore, because "personhood" is a part of mortality and Socrates, we can safely conclude that Socrates is mortal. This syllogism is deductive because it moves from general ideas to increasingly more specific conclusions.
Syllogisms, however, may not be valid for any number of reasons. For one, if they contain false claims in the major or minor premise, then the conclusion cannot be true. That doesn't mean that people aren't persuaded by false syllogisms, but the student of rhetoric hopes to avoid such pitfalls in language. Technically, syllogism is a term used in science and dialectic (according to Aristotle) and rhetoric is concerned with the term enthymeme.
Enthymemes may be either deductive or inductive. Inductive means that the argument moves from specifics (cases, examples, signs) to more general conclusions. Although we've heard many times that Sherlock Holmes would use "deduction, dear Watson," he actually used induction. He would find specific clues that would lead him to a more general understanding of the larger crime itself and the guilty party. One typical characteristic of the enthymeme, because it is a rhetorical strategy, is that a premise is left out of the equation. Here is an example of an inductive enthymeme in which several premises have been omitted:
Because Robert clearly plagiarized most of the ideas in his paper, he must be suspended from school.
There are several specifics, what we might call signs in this case, that support this argument, but they have been omitted from the equation. For example, in order to support this argument, an audience must agree with these omitted premises:
If we disagree with any of these more specific claims, including the signs
of plagiarism — that Robert copied other's ideas into his own paper without
acknowledging credit — then we would have trouble supporting the argument
made above. However, by omitting these more contentious claims, the rhetor
may be able to convince less critical readers of the 'logic' of his/her statement.
One of the best ways to investigate the "logic" of an argument — and thereby prepare more fully to take up the other side — is through a search for fallacies of reasoning that appear in the text. The following list represents some of the most common fallacies you might encounter. These fallacies, however, can be very effective as arguments if the audience doesn't take the time to think seriously about how they work and the implications that they have on the topic at hand.
| Equivocation | A writer is "equivocating" when he/she uses the same term in two or more different ways. |
| Undistributed Middle |
In a syllogism, the middle term is not distributed between the major and minor premises. Consider the following example:
The term people isn't distributed, so the syllogism produces an illogical conclusion. |
| Illicit Process | Simply put, the conclusion does not follow from the premises. Usually, this happens when a term is universal in the conclusion but particular in the premises: |
| Either/Or | Arguments fall into this fallacy when they assume a "black or white" world view, usually. For example, if I argued that "people are either men or women," I would probably not meet much objection from most people. However, people who do research into gender and sexuality would be quick to point out that some people are neither men or women, but are part of some third or fourth group. If a third term can be pointed out, then the argument that's based on "either/or" simply will not hold up among those who are arguing "logically." |
| Hasty Generalization |
This fallacy involves "jumping to conclusions." If our evidence comes from observations (examples, signs, etc.), then we may fall victim to this fallacy if we do not have enough evidence from which to draw our conclusion:
In a culture that values statistics, we might be seduced by the "90%" because that sounds like a lot. And it could be, but since hundreds of people eat at Watterson everyday, 27 (90% of 30 = 27) people is not a representative sample, so the conclusion may be a hasty generalization. |
| Causal Fallacy | When we argue about causal relationships between things, we have to be aware that we leave ourselves open for people to challenge our connections. For example, "After the President took office, the economy suffered an immediate decline." Although a shift in government almost always has an effect on the economy (at least, in a capitalist economy), we could have some ground upon which to base this causal claim. However, any economist would quickly point out that this one cause could not possible generate such a large effect without considering some other causes that happened simultaneously or even before the new President was elected. |
| Faulty Analogy | Analogies never prove anything; at best, they give us a metaphorical way of understanding something. Such analogies can be very powerful in persuading an audience, but the thoughtful rhetor sees an analogy as an easy entrance for a deadly attack. |
| Begging the Question | If a lawyer told the jury, "My client could not have killed Ms. Jones because he is an honest and moral man," the lawyer would be begging the question of honesty and morality. The lawyer assumes that no honest or moral man would kill someone, and of course, we know that many "moral" people have gone to war and killed someone, or we might know of "moral" people who have killed someone in order to defend their children or families from harm. |
| Ad Hominem | This Latin phrase for "to the man" means that the argument attempts to win its point by attacking the person and not the argument itself. For example, when Bill Clinton was first running for office, many argued that "He can't be the President because the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and Clinton dodged the draft to avoid serving in the military." This argument – although it may have some degree of merit – assumes that because of something Clinton did (avoid the draft), he could not make policy about the military. Obviously, this is a false assumption. In fact, one could counter that because he refused to fight in what he saw as an unjust war, he is best suited to lead the military as a commander who would be less likely to engage in such unjust wars. Both arguments, ultimately, commit the ad hominem fallacy. |
| Ad Populum | This Latin phrase means "to the people" and involves appealing to the mass's biases or unjustified fears in order to make a point. Ed Corbett, a 20th Century rhetorician, makes an important point about ad populum: "Appeals to emotions are legitimate [. . .] but appeals to emotions are reprehensible when they cloud the issue, when they anesthetize men's rational faculties." This fallacy also assumes that because many people believe something, it is inherently "true." To argue, as many Georgians did in 2000, that because "most" Georgians do not want to replace the flag, it should not be replaced assumes that "right" is always the way the "majority" believes. |
| Red Herring | Simply put, the "red herring" is a diversionary tactic for leading readers/listeners away from the real issue. In some ways, American's obsession with George W. Bush's verbal gaffs is a way to keep people from thinking about his actual politics. Talented rhetors would not be distracted by such "easy" targets. |
| Complex Question | This fallacy doesn't occur because a question is hard to answer. Rather, it involves questions that have other questions / assumptions buried within them. For example, "When did your brother stop selling drugs?" This question assumes that the brother was indeed selling drugs so that he could "stop." Another classic example is "When did you stop beating your wife?" A listener who hears such a question might be misled by the first part of the question (when did you stop) and answer without realizing the implications of the "hidden" question. Listen to lawyers in court; sometimes, they will use such questions to "trick" the person on the stand. |
Certainly, there are other fallacies that we could look at, but these seem to be some of the most common in contemporary writing and speech. Careful attention to the arguments of others will demonstrate how these fallacies creep in without our knowing.
The reality is, of course, that when these fallacies come into our writing, they are not ineffective. Many people get what they argue for because of such fallacies and their recognition that many people will be persuaded by the words more than the meanings behind the words. I do not want to encourage "sloppy reasoning," so let me be careful here. One of the most effective strategies for getting what you're arguing for is the "either/or" fallacy. Structuring an argument as I suggested above ("People are either men or women.") works quite well with many people. In fact, they would say, "Yeah, that's just common sense." Whenever I hear the term common sense, however, my ears perk up. Usually, behind common sense approaches, are masked prejudices or spaces to interrupt an argument.
Consider the following example of an Olympic athlete who went to Seoul, Korea, to compete in the 1988 games:
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In the rush and excitement of leaving for the 1988 Olympics, Maria Patiño, Spain's top woman hurdler, forgot the requisite doctor's certificate stating, for the benefit of Olympic officials, what seemed patently obvious to anyone who looked at her: she was female. But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had anticipated the possibility that some competitors would forget their certificates of femininity. Patiño had only to report to the "femininity control head office," scrape some cells off the side of her cheek, and all would be in order – or so she thought. A few hours after the cheek scraping she got a call. Something was wrong. She went for a second examination, but the doctors were mum. Then, as she rode to the Olympic stadium to start her first race, track officials broke the news: she had failed her sex test. She may have looked like a woman, had a woman's strength, and never had reason to suspect that she wasn't a woman, but the examination revealed that Patiño's cells sported a Y chromosome, and that her labia hid testes within. Furthermore, she had neither ovaries nor a uterus. According to the IOC's definition, Patiño was not a woman. She was barred from competing on Spain's Olympic team. Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the
Body: |
Anyone attempting to argue that "people are either men or women" would be seriously jeopardized if this anecdote/example were brought into the discussion. Some might dismiss this as an "abnormal" case, but the assumption there is that we know who is clearly male or female. In the case of Patiño, we have a person who believed herself to be a woman all her life, who lived and acted as a woman, who was devastated (the story goes on to say) by this information. Although "either/or" can be used rather dramatically by speakers and writers, I would argue that the rhetor has an ethical obligation to pursue the best argument and avoid attempting to "trick" the audience by masking other possibilities.