A Gentleman and a Scholar: A Tribute to Edward Lane Davis

John S Nelson

doi:10.13008/2151-2957.1035

Poroi Dec 2004 Open Access

A Gentleman and a Scholar: A Tribute to Edward Lane Davis

John S Nelson

Abstract

1 It is time for a little tutorial on ethos.A word tour, this is not, for the neighboring terms get too little attention.But even in broad outline, few words can have more telling careers than ethos, and it is under the aegis of ethos that this issue of Poroi comes together.2 Ethos was the word in ancient Greek for character.This classical kind of character is rhetorical and public rather than psychological and internal, as was character for the Victorians.Classical ethos is the standing of the speaker for the audience.Not just any old audience is at issue, but specifically a classical public, where the members take full parts in collaborating to manage the commonwealth.The classical public is oratorical, not dialogical; still the members take turns in speaking and acting at center stage.In the ancient sense, therefore, ethos is who somebody is in speech in action in public -as told by an audience experienced in many of the same politics. 1The specific identities of classical characters stay alive for their publics in stories that judge the virtues and vices while suggesting how people should act toward each other: the province of what we call ethics. 2 3 This explains how Aristotle could recognize ethos as a legitimate mode of persuasion comparable to logos as logic and pathos as mobilization of emotions. 3The ancient emphasis on virtue in character might well have made ethos as important as either logos or pathos in classical persuasion.To know from sustained interaction the character who advances some claim can be to know an enormous amount about what to make of it.4 Yet classical publics are too small and intimate for modern polities.The invention of civil society gradually turns participation away from government.It also truncates oratorical voices into electoral votes.Especially it shrinks classical ethos to modern credentials or, at most, credibility.Alasdair MacIntyre has lamented how the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries put all diverse, plural virtues into a singular template of virtue. 4That led

Journal: Poroi
Published: 2004-12-01
DOI: 10.13008/2151-2957.1035
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Topics: classical rhetoric rhetorical criticism argument
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A Gentleman and a Scholar: A Tribute to Edward Lane Davis

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