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Concept
Pathos
Summary
Pathos (ˈpeɪθɒs, USˈpeɪθoʊs; plural: pathea or pathê; πάθος, for "suffering" or "experience") appeals to the emotions and ideals of the audience and elicits feelings that already reside in them. Pathos is a term used most often in rhetoric (in which it is considered one of the three modes of persuasion, alongside ethos and logos), as well as in literature, film and other narrative art.
Emotional appeal can be accomplished in many ways, such as the following:
by a metaphor or storytelling, commonly known as a hook;
by passion in the delivery of the speech or writing, as determined by the audience;
by personal anecdote.
appealing to an ideal can also be handled in various ways, such as the following:
by understanding the reason for their position
avoiding attacks against a person or audience's personally
use the attributes of the ideal to reinforce the message.
Pathos tends to use "loaded" words that will get some sort of reaction. Examples could include "victim," in a number of different contexts. In certain situations, pathos may be described as a "guilt trip" based on the speaker trying to make someone in the audience or the entire audience feel guilty about something. An example would be "Well, you don't have to visit me, but I just really miss you and haven't seen you in so long."
Stoic passions
In Stoicism pathos refers to "complaints of the soul". Succumbing to pathos is an internal event (i.e., in one's soul) that consists in an erroneous response to impressions external to it. This view of pathos, and the accompanying view that all pathos is to be extirpated (in order to achieve the state of apatheia), are related by Stoics to a specific picture of the nature of the soul, of psychological functioning, and of human action. A key feature of that picture is that succumbing to pathos is an error of reason – an intellectual mistake.
Epicureanism interpreted and placed pathos in much more colloquial means and situations, placing it in pleasure, and studying it in almost every facet in regard to pleasure, analyzing emotional specificity that an individual may feel or may need to undergo to appreciate said pathos.
Official source
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