The Art of Logic · Part 19 · Fallacies: the bridge to rhetoric · B2–C1
The Appeals: Persuading Without Proving
Part 19 of The Art of Logic: some arguments persuade by attacking the speaker, by the crowd, by pity, by threats, by ignorance or by borrowed authority. Each is a corrupted form of one of the honest means of persuasion, and the door into rhetoric. Talking about what an argument rests on (appeal to, rely on, be based on, have nothing to do with), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight, the last fallacies, and the bridge to rhetoric: the appeals.
To anything except the evidence: to the crowd, to pity, to fear, to a famous name. They have Latin names, because medieval students met them every day.
Ad hominem, “to the man”: attacking the speaker instead of the argument; one kind is tu quoque, “you too”: dismissing a criticism because the critic does the same thing. Ad populum, “to the people”: everyone believes it, so it must be true. Ad misericordiam, “to pity”: feel sorry for me, so I am right.
Ad baculum, “to the stick”: agree, or else. Ad ignorantiam, “to ignorance”: nobody has proved it false, so it is true (or the reverse). Ad verecundiam, “to respect”: a famous person says so, even when the matter is outside their expertise.
Aristotle named three honest means of persuasion: ethos, the speaker’s good character; pathos, the emotions of the audience; and logos, the argument itself. Every appeal is a corruption of one of them. Ethos becomes the ad hominem and the borrowed authority; pathos becomes pity, fear and the crowd; logos becomes the argument from ignorance. Rhetoric, the third art, teaches the honest forms.
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