Logos
Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes

Don Quixote: Logos 3 key examples

Definition of Logos

Logos, along with ethos and pathos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective speaking or writing). Logos is an argument that appeals to... read full definition
Logos, along with ethos and pathos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective speaking or writing). Logos is... read full definition
Logos, along with ethos and pathos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective... read full definition
Part 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Money and Clean Shirts:

When Don Quixote acknowledges that he has no money to pay for food or lodging, the innkeeper uses logos to convince him that it is appropriate for a knight to carry money and other supplies: 

Quixote replied that he did not have so much as a single real, because he had never read in histories of knights errant that any of them had ever carried money. To this the innkeeper retorted that he was deluding himself – even if it wasn’t written in the histories, because their authors had considered that there wasn’t any need to record something as obviously necessary as money or clean shirts, that wasn’t any reason to believe that they’d travelled without supplies of both [...] 

Part 1, Chapter 33
Explanation and Analysis—Lotario's Argument:

After an innkeeper and a priest debate the merits of chivalric literature, the innkeeper notices that the priest is carrying some papers entitled “The Tale of Inappropriate Curiosity." The priest offers to read the story, which concerns two good friends, Anselmo and Lotario. When Anselmo, who is married, asks Lotario to test his wife's fidelity by attempting to seduce her, Lotario responds by using logos to critique his friend's plan: 

If you don’t believe her to be what you say she is, why do you want to test her instead of dealing with her as you think best and as befits a wicked woman? But if she’s as good as you say she is, it’s inappropriate to go performing experiments on truth itself, because it can’t have a greater value afterwards than it had in the first place. And so the conclusion we must reach is that to attempt things that are more likely to do us harm than good is an action of rash, unstable minds [...]

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Part 2, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—The Size of Giants:

When Quixote returns to his village, badly injured and exhausted, the doctor and barber attempt to test his sanity. Though he at first appears quite lucid and reasonable, he soon launches into a defense of knights errant and expresses his belief in fantastical creatures such as giants. When asked about the size of giants, he responds with a characteristic mix of logos and fallacy: 

‘With regard to giants,’ replied Don Quixote, ‘there are different opinions as to whether they ever existed or not [...] I cannot speak with certainty as to the size of Morgante, although I suspect that he cannot have been very tall; and I am inclined to this opinion by reading in the history where his exploits are described in detail that he often slept under a roof, and since he found houses in which there was room for him it is evident that he was not excessively large.’

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