The multifocal approach in Metaphysics Book V

Book V of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is of a highly particular nature: critics have noted its lack of thematic continuity and its originality of content when compared with the other books. Ifwe take this unitary perspective in terms ofthe philosophical but not the literary content,then Book V becomes an important deponent in favour of the multifocal approach, utilized as a veritable hermeneutical key to understanding. Indeed, this text reveals in opere operato the action of saying things in manyways, that is, of defining a thing in all the ways in which it allows it self to be defined . In this sense Book V proves that the multifocal approach is all about bringing into play a variety of interpretative models to explain a reality that is in itself complex and multifaceted:it maybe looked at from diferent points of view, thus leading to different conclusions that at times are bordering on contradiction.