Powell’s ethos, part 2…

I tell my students that a persuasive argument must offer a proper balance of appeals to logic (logos), character (ethos), and emotions (pathos). These are the artistic proofs as identified by Aristotle–artistic because the rhetor must create them. Among the inartistic proofs is giving evidence. For Slate’s Timothy Noah, the combination of ethos and evidence in Colin Powell’s speech to the UN was persuasive.