Think Better, Write Better

A benefit of studying traditional logic is that it can improve our writing skills.

Peter Kreeft, in his excellent textbook Socratic Logic, mentions this. But more than logic is required. We need to develop rhetorical skills!

An argumentative essay which happens to be beautifully written needs to be balanced with its “scientific” rigor. It shouldn’t go to either extreme. You want a lively and well-reasoned essay. A good essay needs a “personal” touch to it.

Give the essay some artistic flare. Man is an emotional animal, not only a rational one. Indeed, we are stirred on by the contrary emotions of desire and aversion. We are not Vulcans from Star Trek. It is just to get angry at injustice! But don’t substitute feelings for reason.

Heated polemics are not necessary to arguments, though.

All I’m driving at is that you want to add some of your own emotional flavor to the essay to get an emotional reaction. Cold logic usually is not enough. The syllogism you’re using might not be your own creation, but the wording of it is. Present it artfully. Appeal both to the intellect and emotions.

Aristotle talked about ethos, pathos, and logos. He knew that we appeal to an audience with more than just raw reason. Logos is only a part of the formula. We have to show them that we are competent and ethical; that’s ethos. We need to appeal to their emotions; that’s pathos.

Read great essayists! Read someone like Peter Kreeft. Study his prose with its logos, ethos, and pathos. Or read social theorist Thomas Sowell. He wastes no words. We learn by example; I know I do!

The best writers can write with subtleties, nuances, distinctions.

And this brings me to something that, for whatever reason, blew up on YouTube’s algorithm. (It has around 1,000 views! How does that happen?)

That’s my video on the LOGIC OF WORDS: