I molti sensi dell'omonimia in Aristotele: le origini della dottrina dell'analogia dell'essere

This contribution aims to demonstrate that we can still find new food for thought on the classic topic of the pseudo-Aristotelian doctrine of the analogy of being if we return to analyzing the issue of this doctrine’s origin. While it has been mostly established that Aristotle’s writings contain no explicit mention of any theory of the analogy of being, the question that remains is whether there are elements in Aristotle that enabled the development of such a doctrine. The present paper suggests that this is the case, and names the ancient commentators Alexander of Aphrodisias and John Philoponus as the initiators of that line of thinking that, based on Aristotle’s texts, attributed the analogy of being to the Stagirite. The main element leading to the full formulation of the doctrine in the Middle Ages is identified in the changeable meaning that Aristotle assigned to homonymy, giving rise to the conviction that homonymy itself could be interpreted in various ways.