In Aristotle's Rhetoric, pathos is persuasion achieved by putting the audience into a particular emotional state.
No single coiner — a common Greek noun given technical use by Aristotle.
// Where it sits
Aristotle's position is firmly at the right — which is why he analysed the emotions rather than warning against them.
What it really means
Pathos is taught as the emotional appeal, and usually with a faint warning attached — the leg of the tripod that manipulates rather than argues, to be used sparingly and watched carefully.
Aristotle devoted ten chapters to it.
Book II of the Rhetoric works methodically through anger, calm, fear, confidence, shame, pity, indignation, envy — and for each one asks the same three questions: what is this state, who is disposed to feel it, and toward whom. That's not a warning. That's an anatomy.
The reason he could treat it that way is a claim about what emotions are. For Aristotle they aren't weather — they contain judgements about the world. Anger involves a belief that you have been slighted; fear involves a belief about impending harm. Which means arousing an emotion legitimately is a matter of getting the audience to see the situation accurately, not of bypassing their reasoning. A speech that makes you angry about something genuinely outrageous hasn't cheated.
The Greek root reinforces it. πάθος comes from paskhō, to undergo — the same family as sympathy, apathy and pathology. In every case the sense is what happens to you. It's a passive noun, which is exactly right for a state a speaker puts you into.
One narrowing to watch: the English literary sense of pathos means something close to pity. The Greek covers the whole range — and Aristotle gets to anger six chapters before he gets to pity.
Where it comes from
The same root gives sympathy (with-feeling), apathy (without-feeling) and pathology. In every case the sense is what happens to you, not what you do.
Myths & misconceptions
Pathos is the emotional appeal — the manipulative one, the weakest leg of the tripod.
Aristotle treats emotions as judgement-laden and analysable, which is why Book II gives them ten chapters of technical anatomy rather than a warning. Anger, for instance, involves a belief about a slight — so arousing it is a matter of getting the audience to see the situation correctly.
Pathos means pity or sadness.
The English literary sense — a scene that moves you to pity — is a narrowing. The Greek covers the whole range of states an audience can be brought into, including anger and confidence, and Aristotle's chapters on anger come before his chapters on pity.
Compare & contrast
Pathos vs ethos
Ethos is a state you induce in the audience about you; pathos is a state you induce in the audience in itself. Both are worked up by the speech, and neither is imported from outside it — which is what makes both of them technical means rather than advantages you happen to have.
| // | Pathos | Ethos |
|---|---|---|
| State induced in | The audience | The audience, about you |
| Produced by | The speech | The speech |
| Aristotle's treatment | 10 chapters | Brief |
| Common misreading | Manipulation | Credentials |
How it connects
Tell it apart
Questions people ask
- What is pathos in rhetoric?
- The second of Aristotle's three technical means of persuasion: getting the audience into the frame of mind in which they'll accept your case. Rhetoric 1.2.3 defines it as the proof depending upon putting the hearer into a certain frame of mind.
- Is pathos manipulative?
- Aristotle is of two minds. In Rhetoric I.1 he attacks emotional appeals as speaking outside the subject. In Rhetoric II he analyses emotions as containing judgements about the world — anger involves a belief about an undeserved slight — which makes arousing them a matter of getting the audience to see the situation correctly rather than of bypassing their reason. Scholars still argue about how to reconcile the two.
- What's the difference between pathos and ethos?
- Pathos works on the audience's emotional state; ethos works on their assessment of the speaker's character. Aristotle insists both be produced by the speech itself: for ethos, confidence must be due to the speech, not to any preconceived idea of the speaker.