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Irony
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: Book 2, Chapter 5: So Be It! So Be It!
Explanation and Analysis—Faith and Punishment:
When various members of the Karamazov family, accompanied by the curious Miusov, visit the local monastery in an attempt to resolve a domestic dispute with the help of Zosima the elder, the monks of the monastery engage Ivan in a discussion of an article he published, that argued that the legal courts of the state should be supplanted by the ecclesiastical courts operated by the church. In his response to Ivan, Zosima employs logos in his argument that physical punishment does not reform criminals or improve society:
All this exile to hard labor, and formerly with floggings, does not reform anyone, and above all does not even frighten almost any criminal, and the number of crimes not only does not diminish but increases all the more. Surely you will admit that. And it turns out that society is thus not protected at all, for although the harmful member is mechanically cut off and sent far away out of sight, another criminal appears at once to take his place, perhaps even two others. If anything protects society [...] it is Christ’s law alone.
Here, Zosima shows that he has been closely following the conversation and has quickly reached the heart of the debate. Though some in the Karamazov party consider him a fool or a charlatan, he is able to enter the debate with ease, using logos to support his argument that external or physical punishment does little to alter a man’s inner conscience. The “number of crimes,” he notes, “does not diminish but increases all the more,” despite the state’s threats of exile and, in the old days, whipping. Zosima adds that the criminal justice system merely places criminals “far away out of sight” and creates space for a new criminal to “take his place.” He concludes that the only true reform would have to affect the conscience of the criminal, so that they have no desire to return to crime.
Related Themes:
Part 1: Book 3, Chapter 7: Disputation
Explanation and Analysis—Renouncing Christ:
Smerdyakov uses logos in his argument that a Christian, if asked to renounce Christ or die, can renounce Christ without receiving eternal punishment. Responding to Grigory’s pious anecdote about a man who was killed in Asia after refusing to deny his faith, Smerdyakov illustrates his reasoning:
And since I’m no longer a Christian, it follows that I’m not lying to my tormentors when they ask am I a Christian or not, since God himself has already deprived me of my Christianity [...] And if I’m already demoted, then in what way, with what sort of justice can they call me to account in the other world, as if I were a Christian, about my renunciation of Christ, when for the intention alone, even before the renunciation, I was deprived of my baptism? If I’m not a Christian, then I can’t renunciate Christ, because I’ll have nothing to renounce.
Here, Smerdyakov uses logos to make an argument that the other characters condemn as immoral, suggesting that reason alone is insufficient to solve difficult spiritual questions. Smerdyakov argues that, at the moment that a Christian denies faith in Christ, their faith is revoked and their baptism is negated. Therefore, the hypothetical Christian is not lying, because they truly are not, by definition, a Christian the very moment they deny Christ.
Following from this, he argues logically that the former Christian will not be punished harshly by God, much as it would be unfair of God to punish those born in pagan lands where Christianity is not practiced. Though his argument is logical, Dostoevsky uses Smerdyakov to illustrate what he considers to be the spiritual inadequacy of such logic.
Related Themes:
