What should I read before tackling this, besides Aristotle's Metaphysics?

imho, this is one of Heidegger's least interesting and most overrated books.

I agree here with about Heidegger's later stuff. It is completely different and by that same token you should dive directly into it. Forget about his systematic/phenomenologic attempts. He is still too kantian and haven't met Hölderlin yet.

Read his articles and conferences. Read his Parmenides alongside with Parmenide's poem and commentators. Same with Heraclitus or Aristotle.

Being and Time is a failed project and an incomplete and abandoned book.

Husserl

Being and time is worth mostly reading for understanding his later works alone.
But I agree it's not his best.

Being and Time is incredible but you're right that his later stuff is much more interesting.

Basic Questions of Philosophy can act as an introduction of sorts to the mode of thinking he adopted later on.

You really don't NEED anyone, because heiddegger is more or less just exploring what it means to be in the act of being, and he is painstaking in laying out his system of how he views i.
Knowing general philosophy would help but I wouldn't say it's necessary.

>You really don't NEED anyone, because heiddegger is more or less just exploring what it means to be in the act of being, and he is painstaking in laying out his system of how he views i.

Then by this same logic you should also accept that you can straigth go to Hegel

I picked up a copy of Poetry Language Thought the other day. I'm decently familiar w/ medieval philosophy/theology, and like a surface-level scratching of Kant. Is there anything necessary to read, or is Heidegger pretty straightforward and dialectical in this collection?

every book

You can jump into most philosophy that isn't late 20th century academic trifling since you're dealing with a complete system and not the latest turn in a long period of convoluted, dry, and contrived discourse. Poststructuralists like Foucault can often be read on their own without much prerequisites and still be valuable, but yet you couldn't say the same for critical theory outside of some of the sociological topics like Adorno's Culture Industry. If you haven't read Marx, Hegel, and the academic canon du jour, then you're walking into a field of jibberish. Pick a book by Habermas, Butler, or somebody who was influenced by them (read: half of literary theory and philosophy today) and be prepared to understand not an iota of what they're talking about.

I meant to say "EVEN post-structuralists" to emphasize just how bad it has gotten today. Sure, other philosophers write their works in response to other philosophers, and the more philosophy you know, the better equipped you are to understand the nuances and the stakes, but when you're dealing with complete systems of thought over motivating issues, you don't need prerequisites to appreciate a good chunk of the work.

I read Hegel without any philosophical background and can confirm this.

bump

just heraclitus and some vague idea of platos forms

after that then you can read aristotle, hegel, kant and see how heidegger takes them up

too bad heidegger was a hack though and his philosophy a mistake

You can though.
You know he intended phenomenology of spirit to be a guide for new students right?

i'll agree that you can jump into without a having a totally horrible time. had a prof as an undergrad that just sent us into it. tho i think we read "what is metaphysics" beforehand if i remember correctly

I went in with a near complete ignorance of philosophy but I do really think that I came away understanding a little bit of what he was getting at. While reading, I tracked the posts /analysis of some reading group found though a google search on some old forlorn message board. It helped, I think?

3 years later I went back, accompanied with my notes from the first read plus a pesud's bushel of acquired knowledge I went back and did a reread. Though, this time, my Sacagewea was Lee Braver's Heidegger: Thinking of Being. I feel the revisit was enriching though I hedge this thought, mindful of my modest brain and the repletive density of Heidegger's thought.

Any pseuds up for participating in a reading group? Preferably, we could enlist somebody who has studied B&T at the university level.

I know. It's my point. Which majority of lit dont get.

But in that time all students dedicated to humanities were formed under Fichte's and Kant's systems. There were strong reasons to write the Phenomenology in the way Hegel did.

Somebody achieving that in our time is, in my opinion, Peter Sloterdijk (and maybe Giorgio Agamben sometimes).