Aristotle’s Definitional Method and the Search for the Supreme Human Good in the Nicomachean Ethics

This article examines the method of philosophical inquiry Aristotle employs in the opening chapters of the Nicomachean Ethics, with particular attention to NE I.2, 1094a18-22. Against the dominant dialectical reading and in critical dialogue with Carlo Natali's 'definition-oriented' model, the article argues that the opening texts of NE I are better understood in light of Posterior Analytics B.10, 93b29-32 such as interpreted by David Charles. On this reading, Aristotle neither establishes the existence of the Supreme Human Good nor presents its real definition, but fixes the conceptual target of the inquiry without existential commitment.