/lit/ - Literature

>Where to start with Aristotle?
Presocratics, Plato, then Aristotle's
Ethics>Politics>On Poetry>The Organon>Physics>On the Soul>Metaphysics>Rhetoric, from his easier works to his harder works.
>And what should I read after him?
Hellenistic philosophy: Middle- and Neo-platonists, Stoics, Epicureans, Cynics, Skeptics.
Then at the very least Bible, Augustine, Aquinas, and Duns Scotus for Heidegger.

And don't even joke about skipping Parmenides and Heraclitus if you want to read Heidegger

>>19789877
Good pick on Aristotle. Generation of Animals is a great read.

>What should I read after him?
Evola.

>>19789877
you only need
>Ethics
>Politics
>Poetics
>Rhetoric
Everything else... unless you want to bash your head, just get a decent secondary source to summarize everything. I would also recommend Melzer's "reading between the lines" book about philosophy.

Also, you don't need to read Aristotle to read Heidegger. In fact, contrary to the memes, all you need is a solid familiarity with Western philosophy in general before you read Heidegger, which you can get through a quality history of philosophy book.

Read Being and Time, bang your head through it, get a secondary source or two to help interpret it, then read the Wikipedia article on ontotheology. Now go back and read anything you want, but I recommend (if you haven't already):
>exoteric Plato
>Aristotle
>Plotinus
>esoteric Plato (Strauss, Tubingen School)
>Lucretius (he's the best counter to everything I just presented)
>The Bible
>St. Augustine
>Maimonides
>St. Aquinas
>Dao De Jing
>Neiye
>Zhuangzi
>Guenon
>Evola
Then live life, meditate, pray, exercise, find God, and then you will understand the truth. You can read other people after that, but I promise you that this is the core.

>>19789966
>Also, you don't need to read Aristotle to read Heidegger. In fact, contrary to the memes, all you need is a solid familiarity with Western philosophy in general before you read Heidegger, which you can get through a quality history of philosophy book.
To illustrate why, Heidegger is pretty thorough in his critique of this philosopher or that philosopher. He's bold, often he's far out, but you can ground in "something" and evaluate what he's saying. And if you the general picture of philosophy in your head and a critical mind, that's enough to start making heads or tails of what he's saying.

For example, you simply don't need to read Meditations by Descartes to understand why Heidegger has a problem with the Cartesian worldview, whether it'd be its dualistic substances or its subject-object distinction. If you get the gist, you'll get the gist. If you're familiar with Descartes but still confused, reading Meditations is going to be a waste of time. You'd be better off trying to understand the critique by going for a walk and banging your head against the wall.

Heidegger is one of the most brilliant modern philosophers who ever lived. If you can tackle him with a nimble mind, you'll end up getting an existential/phenomenological/etc. framework that will eventually boil down to a critique of the human condition and the metaphilosophy as much as we know it (hence ontotheology, can everything that can be said to exist be ground in an ultimate Being, and is that Being "God" without being a being itself?). With that analytical framework in mind, you can go back and see how everybody either gets you closer or further away from that goal.

btw if you want the punchline... you'll eventually realize that Augustine and Aquinas answer Heidegger's challenge better than anyone. Aquinas realized the sublime truth at the end of his life and stopped writing, knowing he couldn't ever capture it fully. (this is why Heidegger started writing, he loved the ancients, Aquinas, the Scholastics, and Meister Eckhart, but wanted to know if he could surpass them) and eventually, Heidegger realized that he was no better than them, submitted, and died as an honest Catholic.

>>19789877
Ethics (skip the moral virtues and focus on the intellectual virtues)
Politics
Metaphysics with Christopher Bruell's commentary

would be a very strong beginning

>>19790011
don't skip the moral virtues you fucking retard. you need an understanding of both (and digest why they seem to be in conflict). Aristotle's framework of what it means to be a good person (autonomy, laws versus exceptions, moral virtue, self-control, and prudence) are definitive. then read Analects by Kongzi for a more practical understanding of virtue ethics, especially the matter where sometimes you will have to
>prioritize certain virtues over other virtues
besides, how are you going to understand Politics without understanding the moral virtues? what do you think kalos and gentleman are but masters of moral virtue? did you even read the book?

just jump straight into whatever it is you want to read.
Sure, you won't get 100% of it, but you still wouldn't even if you had read literally every single philosopher up to heidegger, so what's the big deal anyway?
Read him right now, then you resume working through western philosophy and later on you read heidegger again after having read descartes, locke, hume, kant, hegel, nietzsche...
that way, when you read it for the second time, besides having read the major previous philosophers that influenced heidegger, you'll already know what he was on about in being and time, you'll know the major points and arguments and what now.
You NEED to read it AT LEAST a couple times any way.
If you want to read X, just read X.
Nevermind having to read 500 philosophers you don't exactly want to just in order to read X.

>>19790037
this guy gets it
don't be afraid of not getting it the first time around. hardly anybody does. anything worth reading is worth rereading after further perspective is achieved.

>>19790026
this is good advice if you want to be wrong about everything
>>19790037
This is actually good advice. Heidegger --> Greeks --> Heidegger would be a pretty good path

>>19790757
I wrote both of those posts. Either you trust my intuition or you don’t. I suggest you go back and reread NE & Pol with the understanding that both the political life and the contemplative life are equally important (or maybe not, it’s not an easily resolved tension—go to the Dao De Jing for advice).

Thanks for the recommendations

>>19790772
I think Aristotle is a philosopher and that as a philosopher he knows that the philosophic life and the political life are fundamentally different and that the philosophic life is more choiceworthy. I don't know why I'd read Chinese philosophy to understand Greek philosophy

>>19790757
I'm amending this post: Heidegger --> Greeks would be a good path, perhaps even better than reading the Greeks without having read any Heidegger. The greatest gift Heidegger gave us was the opportunity to rediscover the Greeks

>>19789966
Absolutely false.
For Heidegger, Aristotle's Metaphysics and Physics are by far the most important, and his other works such as Rhetoric and Politics are of significantly less importance.

>>19789877
This is the best path for getting through the necessary works of Aristotle to understand later thinkers such as Heidegger.
>Organon
>Physics (his four causes are of special importance, everything else is second to them)
>De Caelo (good application of his physics and components of his metaphysics and is easier to understand than both of those)
>De Anima
>Metaphysics

Don't be afraid to read secondaries and the SEP pages on his relevant works, and also keep in mind that you don't have to understand everything on the first run, because you won't.
Aristotle's important works, those being his relating to metaphysics, are hardly read and are very difficult to thoroughly understand. He writes and explains everything in a very autistic manner and is extremely extensive in his coverage of every single little applicable point to further his lines of thought and systems. Much of his work lies in these little points and subtle arguments which are not hugely important unless you wish to write a reaction or argument against or furthering what he said, however this has already been done.
The best secondaries on him are probably from Aquinas, but those are pretty long, however they are very good and true to Aristotle, and they influenced Heidegger himself.
Also do not skip reading Brentano, however Husserl is of more importance. For Brentano, I found the cambridge companion to be pretty good, and he elaborates on Aristotle which can be seen to be roughly followed by Heidegger in a somewhat similar way.

>>19789877
Read "Aristotle: The Desire to Understand, Leir" then you will know what you want to read of him

I recommend reading the first couple introductory chapters of Rist's Mind of Aristotle before starting. There are different approaches to Aristotle interpretation and he'll more or less introduce you to them, while also allowing you to visualise Aristotle as a man in very interesting times rather than a set of mysterious texts by themselves.