Letture e riletture aristoteliche . Dai cosiddetti pitagorici a Bergson

To grasp the originality of Vitale’s work on Aristotelianism, one might turn to a musical metaphor. Reading the text feels like entering a contrapuntal composition: Aristotle appears as a score in filigree, a “presence-absence” that nourishes different interpretations—chamber pieces in Renaissance Aristotelianism, solo performances in thinkers such as Arendt or Bergson. Aristotelianism is not a fixed boundary but a variation on a theme, a way of listening to a silent word that lives through its interpretations. Vitale moves beyond the usual bipolar attitude toward “-isms,” which are either treated as stable categories or dismantled through methodological doubt. Instead, he proposes a third path: the “-ism” becomes not a rigid framework but a mode of change itself. This does not lead to relativism. The proliferation of Aristotelianisms is not prevented by polemics or institutional orthodoxy; rather, it reflects the inner dynamism of tradition. In this perspective, philosophy and philology converge: love of wisdom meets love of the word. The scientific rigor of an Aristotelian reading lies in its capacity for wonder—before Aristotle’s text and before present experience. Vitale thus invites us to think historiographical categories musically rather than geographically: as variations on a shared theme, not as rigid boundaries of inclusion and exclusion.