Abstract

_ Source: _Volume 45, Issue 3, pp 319 - 340 This paper engages “A Triadic Conversation” in _Conversations on a Country Path_. The context of this engagement is Heidegger’s account of τέχνη and φύσις in _Contributions to Philosophy _ 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