---
title: Ethos, pathos and logos:the three modes of persuasion
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/write/ethos-pathos-logos/
description: Every persuasive piece answers three questions in the reader's head. Who is this, and why listen? How am I meant to feel? What is the proof?
section: Write
---

![Illustration: a dense, generic Cold War intelligence analyst's evidence wall of press photography, redacted reports and aerial reconnaissance imagery.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-evidence-wall.jpg)

[Write](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/) · Handbook

# Ethos, pathos and logos:the three modes of persuasion

In brief

Aristotle's three modes of persuasion explained with plain definitions, worked examples from several sides and countries, the way each is abused, and a checklist for using all three honestly in your own name.

On this page

- [What Aristotle wrote](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/ethos-pathos-logos/#what-aristotle-wrote)
- [One worked example of each](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/ethos-pathos-logos/#one-worked-example-of-each)
- [How each mode gets abused](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/ethos-pathos-logos/#how-each-mode-gets-abused)
- [How the three interact](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/ethos-pathos-logos/#how-the-three-interact)
- [Checklist for using all three in your own name](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/ethos-pathos-logos/#checklist-for-using-all-three-in-your-own-name)
- [Go deeper](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/ethos-pathos-logos/#go-deeper)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/ethos-pathos-logos/#sources)

On this page

Every persuasive piece answers three questions in the reader's head. *Who is this, and why listen?* *How am I meant to feel?* *What is the proof?* Aristotle named them about 2,300 years ago. This page defines each, shows real examples from several sides, describes how each gets faked, and gives a checklist.

## What Aristotle wrote

In *Rhetoric*, Book I, chapter 2 (1355b-1356a), Aristotle sets aside proofs (*pisteis*) the speaker does not make, such as "witnesses, evidence given under torture, written contracts", and turns to those "we can ourselves construct by means of the principles of rhetoric". These come in three kinds. In W. Rhys Roberts's translation: "The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself."

Later writers call them **ethos** (character), **pathos** (the audience's emotion) and **logos** (the argument). Aristotle adds that character must be shown "by what the speaker says, not by what people think of his character before he begins to speak", and his phrase "proof, or apparent proof" concedes that an argument can look sound without being sound.

| Mode | Plain definition | What it demands of an honest writer |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Ethos** | Why the reader should trust you. | Your real name, relevant experience, disclosed interests, and conduct that matches what you ask of others. |
| **Pathos** | What the reader is moved to feel. | An emotion that fits the true situation, sized to the facts, with something to do about it. |
| **Logos** | What the reader is shown to be true. | Named sources, numbers with denominators, the strongest objection answered. |

"Emotional appeal" is pathos. It is not the opposite of reason, since people act on what they care about. The test is whether the feeling fits the facts ([Emotional appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/emotion/)).

## One worked example of each

**Ethos.** In March and April 1930 Mohandas Gandhi led the Salt March, about 240 miles on foot to Dandi, to break the British salt monopoly, and spun cloth by hand in public as the Indian National Congress asked supporters to do ([Gandhi spins while addressing a crowd (1930)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gandhi-spinning-1930/)). His credibility rested on conduct done in public. On 23 September 1952 Senator Richard Nixon, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, answered charges about a political expense fund in a televised address and itemised his finances: "a house in Washington which cost $41,000 and on which we owe $20,000", "just $4,000 in life insurance", "no stocks and bonds of any type". That part gave the audience figures to weigh.

**Pathos.** In 1904 the missionary Alice Seeley Harris photographed Nsala of Wala with the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter, killed under the Congo Free State's rubber quota system ([Nsala of Wala, with his daughter's hand and foot (1904)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/nsala-of-wala-1904/)). E. D. Morel's Congo Reform Association in Britain printed the photograph, and the Harrises later toured with such images as lantern slides. The feeling, horror and anger, was aimed at a named system, tied to documented events and paired with a demand for reform ([The Congo Free State press war: Leopold II's Press Bureau and the Congo Reform Association](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/congo-free-state-press-war/)). For fear appeals, see [Peace, Little Girl ("Daisy")](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/daisy-ad-1964/) and the 1988 ads in [Emotional appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/emotion/) from the US campaign trail, and [Media war over Croatia and Bosnia, 1987-1995, and the denial of Srebrenica](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/bosnia-war-media/) for wartime media outside the US.

**Logos.** In *A Red Record* (1895) the Black journalist Ida B. Wells tabulated US lynchings from the counts of the *Chicago Tribune*, "admittedly one of the leading journals of America", and wrote: "Out of their own mouths shall the murderers be condemned." She used the other side's numbers, named them and let readers look them up. Dadabhai Naoroji's *Poverty and Un-British Rule in India* (1901) argued from official revenue and trade figures that part of India's revenue was sent to Britain without return, his "drain". Its size is still debated: the claim is specific enough to argue with.

![Gandhi spinning by hand on a raised platform while addressing a crowd, 1930](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gandhi-spinning-1930.jpg)

*[Gandhi spins while addressing a crowd (1930)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gandhi-spinning-1930/). India, 1930: Gandhi spins by hand while addressing a crowd during the Indian National Congress's Civil Disobedience movement. Ethos as conduct.*

![Nsala of Wala with the severed hand and foot of his daughter, Congo Free State, 1904](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/nsala-of-wala-1904.jpg)

*[Nsala of Wala, with his daughter's hand and foot (1904)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/nsala-of-wala-1904/). Congo Free State, 1904: Alice Seeley Harris's photograph, published by E. D. Morel's Congo Reform Association (UK). Pathos tied to a documented event.*

## How each mode gets abused

The archive defines each technique at the point where the fair move stops being fair ([Fair, grey or deception: where each archive technique sits](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/the-line/)).

**Faked ethos.** The trust signal is borrowed, hidden or invented. - "Experts say" with no data ([Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/)), or prestige unrelated to the claim, such as a flag or lab coat ([Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)). Learn: [Obedience to authority](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/). - A hidden speaker. In October 1990 a witness known only as "Nayirah" told a House caucus that Iraqi soldiers had taken babies from incubators in Kuwait. She was the Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter, a link withheld while Kuwait's government paid for the campaign through a PR firm. Later investigations found no support for the account ([The Nayirah testimony: a Kuwaiti government PR campaign at a House human rights caucus](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/nayirah-testimony-1990/); see [Astroturfing](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/astroturf/), [Narrative laundering](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/narrative-laundering/)). - An invented person, such as the AI-faced poet "Gennady Rakitin", who did not exist (['Gennady Rakitin,' an invented pro-war poet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/rakitin-ai-persona-2023/)).

**Manufactured pathos.** The feeling is the product and the facts are thin. Catastrophe plus one remedy is [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/); fury as the product is [Outrage bait](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/outrage-bait/); blaming a whole group for a complex harm is [Scapegoating](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/scapegoating/). Learn: [Fear messaging](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/fear-messaging/), [Moral outrage](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/moral-outrage/), [Identifiable victim effect](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/identifiable-victim-effect/). Test: strip out the emotion words and the image; is a checkable claim left?

**Misleading logos.** It looks like evidence but lacks what a reader needs to judge it: a number without its denominator, or only the numbers that help ([Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/); Learn: [Base-rate neglect](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/base-rate-neglect/)). Two US fundraising posters of the mid-1970s show it on both sides of the gun debate. A gun-rights poster said fewer than one-thousandth of one percent of handguns would be used to commit murder in 1977 ([We asked four leading crooks for their opinion on gun control](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/four-leading-crooks-gun-control-1977/)). A gun-control poster cited the figure that over 70% of handgun murders are committed against people the killer knows and claimed that a handgun owner is far more likely to kill someone they know ([We need handguns like we need a hole in the head](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/we-need-handguns-hole-in-head-1976/)). Each pairs one statistic with a broader claim; the linked case pages note what the figure does and does not show.

![Poster with four drawn portraits of prison inmates and handgun statistics, Second Amendment Foundation, 1977](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/four-leading-crooks-gun-control-1977.jpg)

*[We asked four leading crooks for their opinion on gun control](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/four-leading-crooks-gun-control-1977/). United States, 1977: Second Amendment Foundation fundraising poster built on a handgun-murder statistic. Logos as a single number.*

## How the three interact

The modes check each other. Pathos with no logos underneath is outrage-bait. Logos from an unknown source asks the reader to take it on trust. Ethos alone, a name and a title with no evidence, is a testimonial. The Congo photograph worked because Harris and Morel were traceable, the event was documented and the image made readers care. The Nayirah appearance failed on the first two. Keep the emotion in proportion to the evidence, the evidence findable, and the speaker accountable. That discipline is what separates the fair bands of [Fair, grey or deception: where each archive technique sits](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/the-line/) from its Deception band, where techniques hide the speaker or disable checking.

## Checklist for using all three in your own name

1. **Ethos.** Your name, role, employer and funder are on it. Any endorser is real, quoted accurately and disclosed if paid.
2. **Ethos.** What you ask readers to do matches what you do.
3. **Pathos.** You can name the emotion you are aiming for and the fact that justifies it. Fear comes with something to do; anger points at a decision or body, not a group of people.
4. **Logos.** Each claim has one findable source, with date and denominator.
5. **Logos.** The strongest objection is stated and answered, and the fact that cuts most against you is in.
6. **Together.** Remove the emotion: does a checkable claim remain? Remove the claim: does the emotion still stand? If so, rewrite.

## Go deeper

[Evidence and credibility](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/evidence/), [Narrative](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/narrative/), [Before you publish: the fair-play check](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/before-you-publish/), [Anatomy of deception: how documented operations worked, and how to spot them](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/deception-anatomy/).

## Sources

- Aristotle, *Rhetoric*, Book I, ch. 2 (1355b-1356a), trans. W. Rhys Roberts (MIT Internet Classics Archive).
- Nixon, R. (1952). "Checkers" speech, 23 September 1952 (text at the Miller Center, University of Virginia).
- Wells, I. B. (1895). *A Red Record*.
- Naoroji, D. (1901). *Poverty and Un-British Rule in India*. Swan Sonnenschein.
- Morel, E. D. (1904). *King Leopold's Rule in Africa*. Heinemann.
- Library of Congress, Yanker poster collection (gun-debate posters).

## Techniques

[Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Outrage bait](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/outrage-bait/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)

## Related

- [Emotional appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/emotion/)
- [Evidence and credibility](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/evidence/)
- [Fair, grey or deception: where each archive technique sits](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/the-line/)
- [Narrative](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/narrative/)
- [Before you publish: the fair-play check](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/before-you-publish/)
- [Anatomy of deception: how documented operations worked, and how to spot them](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/deception-anatomy/)
- [Fear messaging](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/fear-messaging/)
- [Moral outrage](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/moral-outrage/)
- [Obedience to authority](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/)
- [Base-rate neglect](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/base-rate-neglect/)