LEGO Logic

Ole Kirk Christiansen. He is a man well known, yet not. A man whose creation has entertained and inspired many. A man who may have created the single most typical toy for any middle class kid to play with. He is the founder of the LEGO Group, and now I must thank him for being the inspiration to my title.

"Persuading by the use of reasoning," otherwise known as logic, or logos, is an irreplaceable tool when it comes to persuasion, or any rhetorical need. It is inescapably intertwined with ethos and pathos, even when we do not want to admit it. It can be a solidifier of thoughts and hopes, or a tool for compromising, if it is not compromised itself. Even though at times it may not be the strongest of the three main arguments (ethos, pathos, logos) it is potentially the most important.

In many cases we see the use of logos. Court cases, debates, academic courses, and even simple arguments among family and friends all have some form of logos. The most common type of logos is logic and reasoning. As people make arguments they attempt to lead others to the conclusions they've reached, in order to obtain agreement on the subject matter. It's like if each piece of evidence or reasoning was one LEGO piece and they were building a LEGO tower of logic. When they repeat their logic to others step by step it serves as directions to how to build their LEGO masterpiece in a way so it is identical to their original creation. However there are ways that logos is used even when we don't realize it.

Logos can be, and is often, very closely tied to ethos. We tend to take someone's past, accomplishments, education, relative situations, and more into account in order to judge whether they are "qualified" and whether we should trust their judgments or writings. Without realizing it, we use logic to trust other people's opinions, statements, and ideologies. Even if we call it ethos, logos is still an intricate part of it.

Logos can also be compromised in an instant. Pathos, the appealing to emotion, is potentially the strongest of the three appeals. When people tug at the emotions of others they essentially break down all logical thoughts that are inside them. Take a court case of someone who was a part of a burglary. Logically everyone would want to make them do time, however, looking at the view of his/her family, their emotions would compromise their logic and push them to fight for his/her freedom, even when the evidence is leading in the complete opposite direction.

Ultimately logos may not be the most effective appeal, but it may yet be the most intricate appeal, as it is involved in some way or another with the other two.