Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, Chapter 7
This chapter was helpful, because it addresses the pathetic proofs, or the appeal to passion and emotion. While pathos is a universal knowledge within the world of rhetorics, this chapter went into extensive detail about the importance of developing emotional arguments. It addresses the importance of emotions, and how they are distinguished by things like appetites and intensity, which affect the overall impact and influence of a pathetic proof.
It also addresses how to analyze emotions in order to make a cohesive and strong emotional argument. Aristotle created knowledge about pathos, and how important it is to understand emotions: "First, they must understand that state of mind of people who are angry, joyful, or indignant; second, they must know who can excite these emotions in people; third, they must understand the reasons for which people become emotional" (II ii 1377b-1378a). This is important, because while people do make emotional appeals, oftentimes they do not understand how to truly appeal to their audience by assessing emotions and making strong arguments based of these assessments.
As a writer, I think one of the most important things to remember is to write with passion. Without it, a piece of writing or a speech does not hold the same importance as ones that are made about a topic that you are truly passionate about. I felt that after this classroom discussion, I formed a better understanding of how to use personal emotions to convey a message effectively. Oftentimes, appeals are used within writing without the writer actually having good knowledge as to how to use these conventions to develop a strong and functioning argument.
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