This note is meant to contribute to a more general project, i.e. allowing a broader and a more articulated discussion about a crucial research field – editing Aristotle’s Metaphysics – whose status of the art is moving today faster than it ever did since the XIX century. I’ll firstly have a section 1 of preliminary remarks. There I start with the most general question, about what our sought-for edition is expected to be (1.1); then I outline the present status of the art – as I see it – (1.2), so to make my points of section 2 more perspicuous in the frame of their methodological background . In section 2 I spell out some perplexities concerning my own selected topic: how should Harlfinger’s stemma be revised? Which are the enjeux of a such revision? Those readers who are already familiar with the matter at issue are welcome to jump the following section and to switch to section 2 below.