IB Docs (2) Team
Logos
For our purposes, 'logos' is the appeal to a reader or listener's sense of logic. 'How do your arguments convince me to take action?' This is the kind of question that an audience asks when listening to a speech or reading a text. This definition comes from the tradition of analyzing rhetoric, as founded by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. In this tradition, logos is one of three main rhetorical appeals, together with pathos and ethos, which are appeals to the sense of emotion and authority respectively. Appealing to a sense of logic usually involves arguments, syllogisms, and reasoning. This means that a persuasive speaker will present several premises before coming to a conclusion.
Here is an example of logos, as found in a speech by Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve.
The Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy
Ben Bernanke
27 August 2010
However, although private final demand, output, and employment have indeed been growing for more than a year, the pace of that growth recently appears somewhat less vigorous than we expected. Notably, since stabilizing in mid-2009, real household spending in the United States has grown in the range of 1 to 2 percent at annual rates, a relatively modest pace. Households' caution is understandable. Importantly, the painfully slow recovery in the labor market has restrained growth in labor income, raised uncertainty about job security and prospects, and damped confidence. Also, although consumer credit shows some signs of thawing, responses to our Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices suggest that lending standards to households generally remain tight.
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