Technology, Essence, and Everyday Living

This paper engages "A Triadic Conversation" in Conversations on a Country Path. The context of this engagement is Heidegger's account of and in Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) as they are put to work in the conversation of a guide, a scholar, and a scientist. The leading questions are whether Heidegger's thoughts of Seyn, Wesen, and Machination are helpful to understand and engage the pressing challenges to Western societies? Are those challenges primarily the devastations wrought by a culture of technology and its accompanying mind-set that, according to Heidegger, inevitably lead to war and massive types of destruction among all worldly lives? And is "A Triadic Conversation" an indication of a dangerous alienation from the everyday social and political world in which it was conceived? Stillness and silence play significant roles in the discussion of his accounts of the Wesen of humans and of nature as it brings to bear the everyday events that defined the time during which Heidegger wrote "A Triadic Conversation." The paper concludes with a reflection on the importance of the differences between Heidegger's approach and ones that begin by confronting the confusing, uncertain, but specific events that are taking place in the thinkers' world.