Jacob, Bernard E. “What if Aristotle Took Sophists Seriously? New Readings in Aristotle’s Rhetoric.” Rhetoric Review. 14.2(Spring 1996): 237-52.

Bernard Jacob’s “What if Aristotle Took Sophist Seriously? New Readings in Aristotle’s Rhetoric” (1996) argues that the passages scholars often interpret as Aristotle’s scathing criticism of sophists in the first two chapters of the Rhetoric are, in fact, Aristotle’s ironic language. Jacob follows his assertion through two passages in the Rhetoric: Protagoras’ theory that weaker arguments can be made stronger through the fallacies included and the transition sentences between the first and second chapters. Jacob looks, in the first passage, at the reason that Aristotle chooses to reference Corax, Protagoras, Agathon and Socrates within the ninth topic of the first chapter. In the second passage, Jacob asserts that Aristotle’s “belittling of pre-Socratic authors” (244) is also laden with ironic intentions. The focus in the essay lies on these two specific passages and Jacob’s assertions require the careful study of only experienced scholars of rhetoric. Jacob directs his essay to the learned rhetoric scholar in order to accomplish his larger purpose with the essay, which he succinctly sums up in his introduction as a demand for scholars to “accept that Plato and Aristotle, at least some of the time, reflected an understanding and respect for the work of the sophists and rhetors” (237) so that there might be a more thorough understanding of their works.

Jacob’s article provides some interesting assertions in the relationship between Aristotle and his predecessors. To read Aristotle’s first chapters could put a new spin on the study of rhetoric in today’s educational programs as well as in the professional study of rhetoric. However, the points Jacob makes in his article seem somewhat vague and this, unfortunately, the new rhetorician must carve their way through the material in order to make sense of the article and the assertions become confusing and unclear. With a fuller understanding of Aristotle, the article could be quite an asset to an emerging scholar, but at this point in my studies I cannot be certain that the assertions made by Jacob can in any way be true, but I do have a path in which I could begin studying these texts more in-depth.