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Ethos Pathos And Logos Essay

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Other pre-Socratics such as the Milesians and Xenophanes all posited that there is only one way to make sense of the universe: direct empirical observation. According to this framework, real human knowledge is impossible to achieve in most fields of thought. If all the individual has to go on is observation, then places where direct observation is unavailable, knowledge is impossible to obtain in its entirety. Hence, in contradiction to this popular belief,
Heraclitus proposed an alternative to straight observation, the idea that the world is ordered and unified by a single divine law, the “logos.” Within human existence, logos transforms into character, awareness and life attitude. According to Heraclitus the order of existence and the principles of human thinking are all subjected to the same logos. It is the same law that provides order to nature and the human mind. The unity of logos as …show more content…

Still, this is a rare experience according to Heraclitus. He claims that even if the Logos is common, “men live as if they had a private understanding of it” (Cohen 21). Most men perceive the world through their own illusory private beliefs, desires, insecurities and opinions. Since the majority of people do not adhere to logos, they follow their own personal thoughts and desires. In a metaphorical sense, Heraclitus explains this state as, “Pigs wash in mud and domestic fowls in dust or ashes” (Cohen 22). Wisdom, above all else, is a state of awareness. Heraclitus warns that “One should not act or speak as if he were asleep” (Cohen 21). Only then can the individual feel the full meaning of existence. “The waking has one world in common sleepers have each a private world of his own” (Cohen 21). This inner awakening expresses the ability to unite with the harmony of logos. Wisdom refers to internal understanding Logos and then integrating it with the universal law of the

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