Someone finally found a practical use for philosophy.
There’s a guy named Jake Moreno who’s a student at Salt Lake Community College in Utah. Jake was recently telling his English professor about how bad he was with girls, and the professor found a way to simultaneously help him AND teach him.
Jake wanted to ask out a girl named Hannah, so his English professor walked him through the three methods of persuasion that Aristotle talks about in his book “Rhetoric”. Could philosophical theory from the 4th century B.C. work today?
The three methods are ethos, logos, and pathos. In ethos, you appeal to someone’s moral values, so Jake decided not to come on too strong or pressure her too much.
Logos is using facts to support your argument, so Jake offered, quote, “free food, a break from work, and a good low-stress time.” And pathos is appealing to someone’s emotions, so Jake went with, quote, “It’ll be fun.”
And . . . it worked. He texted Hannah, they went on a date last weekend, and Jake said it went great.
So could this work for you? I mean . . . it’s not a terrible way to structure a text you’re sending to someone. And if it fails, you can blame Aristotle and not yourself, so that’s a win-win. (Mashable)
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