THE POWER OF LÓGOS AND ITS MORAL DIMENSION

ABSTRACT This work aims to emphasize the coercive force existing in language, which has been elucidated since Antiquity with the Sophists, as it is possible to visualize with Gorgias, more specifically in the Praise of Helena. The sophistical view of language can be considered an embryonic vision of what has come to be called pragmatics, and it is possible to see this relation, for example, in the works of the British philosopher John L. Austin, with emphasis on his theory on the Acts of Speech (AUSTIN, 1990 [1955]). The power of lógos must be thought of as something capable of changing the state of things in which a given situation is found, and it is necessary to consider the moral dimension of its use, according to Paveau (2015), since through it, more than just say, we do things. In this sense, this work starts from a news report from which it is possible to verify the power of discourse and its consequences, which in some cases may be negative. In addition, we will mobilize the concept of "post-truth", which has gained space and been increasingly used, relating it to that sophistical and Austinian power of discourse.