Ethos (ἦθος) — Character, a habitual way of being; originally the dwelling or accustomed place of a living creature, and hence its customs. Greek distinguishes ēthos (with eta, “character”) from ethos (with epsilon, ἔθος, “habit,” “custom”), and Aristotle exploits this closeness in the Nicomachean Ethics (II.1, 1103a): ethical virtue (ēthikē) takes its name from habit (ethos), since it is acquired by the repetition of acts. From this comes “ethics” and, through Latin, “morals” (mores). The word appears in a saying of Heraclitus (fr. B119 Diels-Kranz) usually translated as “character is for man his daimōn,” and Heidegger, in the Letter on Humanism (1946), reads it as the abode in which a human being dwells. In the Rhetoric (I.2, 1356a), Aristotle presents ethos as one of three means of persuasion, alongside pathos (the emotion aroused in the audience) and logos (the argument): it is the credibility the speaker builds through the speech itself, through the practical wisdom, virtue and goodwill he displays. In contemporary usage ethos also names the set of values, customs and attitudes that characterizes a group or a culture (the scientific, professional or civic “ethos”). See also ethics, pathos, logos, arete and daimon; the central thinker is Aristotle.
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