ὅτι ἀληθές (a31, a passage of great importance that we cannot go into at this time). "Furthermore, being signifies 'is' in the sense of 'it is true."' Just as we too say something is so-in emphasizing the "is," we mean to say: it is in truth so. Here then the concern is with the being of being true. Finally, the ὄν as δύναμις and ἐνέργεια is introduced (a35f.): ἔτι τὸ εἶναι σημαίνει καὶ τὸ ὂν τὸ μὲν δυνάμει [ῥητὸν], τὸ δ᾽ ἐντελεχείᾳ; "Furthermore, being also means the being δυνάμει as well as ἐντελεχείᾳ." Τὸ εἶναι σημαίνει τὸ ὄν: being means the being [das Seiende] (actually being [Seiend] and not beings). Being (εἶναι) means nothing other than the being (ὄν) insofar as the being is this and nothing other.
The realm of questioning of our treatise is the ὂν ᾗ ὄν: beings as beings; but now this means being. And what is being asked about is a way of being that folds itself in four foldings that are simply listed in a row. Τὸ ὂν λέγεται πολλαχώς means: τὸ εἶναι (τοῦ ὄντος) λέγεται πολλαχώς. The πολλαχώς ascribed to ὄν and εἶναι refers in most cases to the four ways of being mentioned above, even when at times only two or three of these are listed: πολλαχώς = τετραχῶς.
However, ὂν πολλαχώς λεγόμενον also has a narrower meaning. In this case, it does not refer to the aforementioned four ways, but to one of them, one which again and again assumes a certain priority: τὸ ὂν κατὰ τὰ σχήματα τῆς κατηγορίας—being in the sense of the category. This ὄν, that is, εἶναι in this sense, is not only one among the πολλαχώς of four, it is in itself a πολλαχώς λεγόμενον, namely, in as many ways as there are categories. Compare a23f.: ὁσαχῶς γὰρ λέγεται [ἡ κατηγορία, H.] τοσαυταχῶς τὸ εἶναι σημαίνει. Thus, this ὄν is itself a πολλαχώς λεγόμενον because here the λέγειν is the utterly exceptional λέγειν of the tcat11yopia which already prevails in any My~ whatsoever.
The treatise of the Metaphysics that discusses the first category, οὐσία, and which is one of the cornerstones of Aristotle's philosophy, is in accord with all of this when it begins with the simple guiding proposition: τὸ ὂν λέγεται πολλαχώς (Z I, 1028a10). What follows next in the text that has been handed down, namely καθάπερ διειλόμεθα ... ποσαχῶς, could not have come from Aristotle but was inserted later by those who attempted to paste together the individual