Famous Thinkers

Martin Luther King Jr. sought attention of a larger and universal audience in the letter from Birmingham Jail. His audience was not only the oppressed black minority groups, but also the whites who perpetrated injustices. Luther addressed to the Alabama clergymen in his letter, and he artistically used communication skills to view his concerns. Contrary to those who took part in oppressing him, Luther was addressing a greater good that was aimed at solving the problem on oppression by uniting his audience on a larger magnitude. Luther appealed not only to eight clergymen he was addressing in this letter, but also to his entire audience by making biblical references to Jesus and Paul who were oppressed as creative extremists, but were dedicated servants of God (King, 1995).

In order to solve the problem of oppression, Martin Luther wanted to convince these eight clergymen who had strongly criticized his work on civil rights. He wanted the clergymen to be convinced on the utility of this noble commitment in the area of civil rights awareness at that particular moment of time. Martin Luther King wanted the clergymen and the entire group of individuals who were opposing him to conclude that he had adequate authority and sufficient commitment to advance the cause of civil rights on his community’s behalf (Oppenheimer, 1993).

Martin Luther King Jr. used various arguments to support his civil rights purposes. He argued that he was capable of successfully leading his oppressed community in championing for their rights. In addition, he wanted to create rejection of immoral behaviors (Fulkerson, 1979).

Once Luther’s letter was published across America, his audience would definitely react towards his support and commitment to liberating them from oppression, and making sure that justice and morality prevail in the society. He wanted his audience to come to a conclusion that there was a need for peace and unity (Fulkerson, 1979). Besides, the audience would understand that Luther was championing for their independence through civil rights.

Luther’s ideas needed to integrate more effective strategies to make a larger appeal to his audience, especially demanding for the judicial system’s immediate intervention and persuading other clergy and public to join hands in fighting inequality/oppression. Arguably, the readers of Martin Luther’s letter could be strongly convinced that he had skillfully borrowed from the works of Aristotle on persuasion which involve the use of logos, pathos and ethos (Oppenheimer, 1993). This was evidenced in the first appeal to his own personal wisdom as well as reputation, then careful arousal of sympathy and emotions in the audience plus the readers. Eventually, Luther was appealing to the logic in sense that it was supported by citations as well as evidence from some of the most influential thinkers.

King was appealing to facts as he was indeed the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Oppenheimer, 1993). This argument was used by Luther to remind his opponents about his leadership position in that religious society, which could offer him the best qualification to be at the same standing with eight clergymen. This statement supported his belief system in recognition of one’s potential and fairness in the community.

Fodor Jerry made important contribution to the society, especially by addressing issues of scientific knowledge (Fodor, 2006). His intellect, creativity and prowess shaped societal knowledge. As part of the solution for misunderstanding on how the mind works, Fodor studied that science is about facts, thus it fails to account for societal norms (Fodor, 2006). This implies that science can help human beings how they are, but it fails to show the individuals how wrong they are.

Fodor argues that what we see is not quite obvious, and common sense can sometimes fails us. In this regard, it is not easy to understand how a person’s mind works (Fodor, 2006). However, Fodor could have approached this problem differently, especially by conducting some empirical research on how the mind works. Such research findings would then be subjected to statistical tests and analysis to verify the results.