Abstract

These volumes are the much augmented and heavily revised commentary and text by Giovanni Reale of Aristotle's Metaphysics, which was originally issued in two volumes in the series Collana di Filosofi Antichi from the Centro di Studi Filosofici di Gallarate, published by Luigi Loffredo Editore, Naples. The volumes are part of the collection entitled "Temi metafisici e problemi del pensiero antico. Studi e testi," published by the Centro di Ricerche di Metafisica of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan. The two volume set was published in 1968 and much has transpired since, including the publication of Reale's major work, A History of Ancient Philosophy, in five volumes, of which four volumes have been translated into English. The second volume of the series, Plato and Aristotle, was the vehicle of a profound change in Reale's views on Plato and subsequently on Aristotle. Reale came to the attention of the Anglophone world through his work The Concept of First Philosophy and the Unity of the Metaphysics, which elegantly undermined the Jaegerian thesis on the development of Aristotle's metaphysical thought by showing that the four dimensions, or strands, of Aristotle's thought on metaphysics, although conceptually distinct, interpenetrated one another in a fruitful manner which gave length, breadth, and depth to his treatment of metaphysics, or first philosophy.