This final chapter shows how further enquiry into artefacts’ metaphysics forces us to return to artefacts’ physics. At the same time, this further enquiry is in turn shown to fall outside the interests of a metaphysician and to be the task of a natural philosopher. For this reason, the chapter looks at artefacts as objects of inquiry and distinguishes between perspective of the natural scientist, the maker, and the user on the one hand, and the perspective of the metaphysician on the other. This discussion allows us to wrap up the results, to reassess the relationship between the Physics and the Metaphysics, and to evaluate the respective contributions of these works to Aristotle’s ontology of artefacts.

A passage at 1048b18–35 in chapter six of Metaphysics Book Θ, forging a distinction between activities Aristotle classes as energeia, actuality, and those he calls kinesis, change, has become a favourite subject of discussion by analytic philosophers. This chapter argues that this now celebrated section does not fit into the overall programme of Θ, was not written for Θ, and should not be printed in the place we read it today. It is an isolated fragment of uncertain origin. Although there is good reason to accept that it is authentic Aristotle, its focus is rather different from what it is usually taken to be. Moreover, the distinction is unique in the corpus, and should not be imported into other Aristotelian contexts such as Nicomachean Ethics X or De Anima II.5. The chapter first documents the passage’s anomalous standing within the manuscript tradition. It then argues that Aristotle’s focus here is on verbal aspect, not tense. Next corruptions in the transmitted text are discussed, in light of the hypothesis that the passage was originally imported as a marginal annotation, and a revised text is proposed. Finally, the uniqueness of its philosophical content is established. It is a freak performance.

Aristotle maintains that defining "intelligence" (nous) requires first defining its activity, “understanding” or “insight” (noēsis) which requires first having considered its objects, intelligible beings (noēta). This chapter is about the nature of these objects: what about them makes them intelligible? My principal proposals are that what makes them intelligible is that they are "separate" and "unmixed," and that because, insofar as they are intelligible, they are, in their essence, "activity."’ I am aware this makes it sound as though Aristotle takes intelligibility to consist in some kind of intelligence. But in fact this is a result he is committed to, by the doctrines that intelligence is intelligible and that there is something that intelligible objects "all are in common"; for the alternative, as he himself says, is to suppose that intelligence "will have something mixed-in, which makes it intelligible just like the rest." The challenge, then, is not to steer clear of this result, but to make sense of it. My proposal is that the key to this lies in realizing that and why Aristotle thinks of intelligibility as a creature of intelligence.

Chapter 4 sketches how the contribution of ordinary language philosophers like Ryle, Kenny and Vendler to linguistic semantics has added to persistent terminological confusion. Their delivery of the Aristotelian legacy to linguistics consists of a sort of naive physical ontology at the cost of the principle of compositionality. The misleading translation of Greek verb forms occurring in the crucial passus of Metaphysics 1048b into the English Progressive Form will be argued to have been decisive for what natural (language) philosophy handed to linguists: an outdated vision on motion. The chapter also sketches the heavy work of a verb in taking all sorts of different arguments and argues that features are insufficient for the semantics of tense and aspect: they should be used as abbreviatory and for convenience only.

Chapter 6 concludes the discussion of lexis by focusing on metaphor, the linguistic and stylistic element par excellence treated under the notion of lexis. Unlike other linguistic phenomena, metaphor is not tied to a single form or genre but is listed in every enumeration of linguistic means available to the author of a poetic or rhetorical composition. This final chapter highlights the reason for the special place Aristotle assigns to metaphor by looking at it from the point of view of lexis and by examining it in the light of the excellence of lexis, as well as of mimēsis and energeia. Not only does this allow for a new approach to metaphor, but it also highlights the benefits of a three-level approach to Aristotle’s concept of lexis.

Friends play functional roles in our lives, such as enhancing our ability to think and act. Sometimes the functionality remains at the level of business: trading partners often start liking each other. However, a deeper study reveals that Utility plays a critical role in “altruistic” activity. Aristotle says benefactors seek beneficiaries “useful for noble deeds” (sc. of generosity). Doing good for others creates love—not in the recipient but in the benefactor, according to Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Kant, who agree despite diverse metaphysical commitments. Benefactors are like artisans who love their own creations. By investing part of themselves in others, benefactors create a stake in others which they feel they own. Part of their identity is now wrapped up in the other person. Doing good thus extends our being to include another self or selves. The insight that utility is an ingredient in love has public policy implications for social security, health care, and civil society-building.