For Alcidamas (fourth century bce), logos refers to a speech, and enthymeme to an argument (of any sort). Plato uses logos for a speech or account as a whole, a sentence, and a supporting reason or argument, as well as for reason in general, and opposes logos to muthos. The term logos takes on distinct technical senses in fourth-century bce rhetorical theory. Gorgias emphasizes the power of logos (in the sense of language in general, speeches, or verbal persuasion) as deriving from its magical effect, which acts like a drug, on its hearers, and thus has the force of a compulsion. 375 bce) paradoxical “Encomium of Helen,” which argues that Helen was not culpable because she did not leave her husband voluntarily, but was compelled by a superior force, being either abducted forcibly by Paris or overcome by the powers of love, fate, or persuasive speech. Particularly significant for rhetoricians is Gorgias’ (c. 371–287 bce), is used, inter alia, neutrally to signify a composer of prose stories or tales or pejoratively to indicate a spinner of tall tales. A related compound, logopoios (derived from logopoieô, to write, invent, or compose stories or speeches), found in Herodotus (c. In much of Greek thought, rationality and speech were considered interdependent.Īs long prose compositions were termed logoi, prose writers, including historians and those employed in the lucrative, if moderately disreputable, profession of ghost-writing speeches for law courts, were referred to as “logographers” (logographoi). In its senses as both reason and speech, logos was used in ancient Greek to refer to that which distinguished humans from beasts. Logos is found infrequently in Homer (eighth century bce), coming into wide usage only in the prose writers of the sixth century, with the primary meaning of a “speech” or “tale.” It quickly became a common Greek term, with many meanings, including “word,” “story,” “speech,” “reputation,” “ratio,” “book-keeping tally,” “rumor,” “rule,” “explanation,” “argument,” and “reason.” Logos tends to signify uttered thought, rather than specific words barbarians and Greeks are described as using different types of sound (phônê) or word (rhêma) to express the same logos. The Greek noun logos derives from the verb legô (to speak), and has many derivatives and cognates in several Indo-European languages. Logos (plural logoi) is a polysemous Greek term, which generally has been used in rhetoric to refer to the component of persuasion grounded in logic or reason as opposed to that based on emotion or character, although these distinctions are not entirely unproblematic.
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