21 Logos is Synonymous With Logic

In this brief essay, Nancy Fox complicates the “bad idea” that “Logos is Synonymous With Logic.” Instead, in this selection from Bad Ideas About Writing, Fox draws on ancient texts and contemporary understandings of rhetoric to demonstrate the complexity of argumentation. She suggests that a nuanced view of logos is actually more useful for our understanding of how arguments function.

Read Nancy Fox’s “Logos is Synonymous With Logic.”

Keywords from this chapter in Bad Ideas about Writing

logic, logos, persuasive discourse, philosophy, rhetoric, rhetorical theory

Author Bio from Bad Ideas about Writing

Nancy Fox is a faculty member in the English department at the University of West Florida and a doctoral candidate in English language and rhetoric at the University of Washington, Seattle. She has published poetry, essays, and a children’s book, as well as work in feminist studies, multimedia, and writing. Her subjects have ranged from analysis of the film The Kids Are All Right and Andy Warhol’s Dream America to a new discovery in “The Mouse’s Tale” from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She lives on the Gulf Coast with her spouse and two children.