Sublime

The dictionary defines ethos as: The moral character, nature, disposition and customs of a people or culture.

Ethics are the act of implementation of the agreed moral code.

What about ethos, the first term of Heraclitus’ fragment? To our ears it sounds like “ethics.” This loads ethos, a Greek word unencumbered by piousness, with all the moralism of Hebrew, Roman, and Christian religiosity. If we try to strip away the ethics from ethos, we find it carries more the meaning of “habit.” Heraclitus might be saying that

In classical rhetoric, three elements compose every persuasive message: logos: the verbal content of the message, including its craft and logic pathos: the emotive features of a message, including the passion, fervor, and feeling that a speaker conveys and the listeners experience ethos: the perceived character of the speaker, determined most

Ethos is not what a person says or promises, but it’s her way of being in the world, a presence and comportment that effects others to follow her and to be open to her ideas.