Aristotle’s Metaphysics V 7 Revisited

Aristotle’s discussion of ‘to be’, presented in his V 7, has been much debated. Most scholars explain the Aristotelian ‘to be’ as a result of a so called ‘unnatural predication’. By accepting this reading, Aristotle’s distinction becomes necessarily blurred. The same holds with respect to Ross’ reading of the passage according to which ‘to be’ is restricted to essential predications. The purpose of this paper is to show the inappropriateness of both readings and to offer a better one. In doing so, I will argue that Aristotle’s concern is neither about various uses of the verb ‘to be’ in Ancient Greek nor about types of predication, but on ontology and its pitfalls.