Heidegger delivered this lecture in 1949 and 1950, in Bremen and Bühlerhöhe, as part of a cycle of four lectures under the title Insight into That Which Is. In this final lecture of the cycle Heidegger describes the coming to presence of positionality as the danger, although it does not therewith announce itself as the danger. Positionality is the essential nature and dynamic of technology, which hides itself in the forgottenness of being and the corollary presencing of entities for exclusively instrumental purposes. The hidden danger of positionality is that being endangers the possibility of its truth. Positionality is the destiny of being. Technology can only be overcome if being presences in another way. Human beings can never overcome technology by themselves, because their power and capabilities are equally shaped by the forgottenness of being. Since technology arises from this forgottenness, human beings can surmount technology only if they discover the as-yet hidden truth of being, and thus prepare for a new destiny of being. This can only happen if human beings first establish themselves in the play-space determining who they are and take up their dwelling there.
As Heidegger explains, we must first learn how to think before we can ponder the truth of being as that which is worthy of questioning. Language is the primordial dimension within which human beings can abide, and by heeding its claim, thereby belong to being. Through thinking, we must learn to dwell in the realm where we come to confront the historical roots, as well as the destructive forces of machination.
The danger of the coming to presence of positionality conceals the possibility of the turning, in which the forgottenness belonging to the destiny of being will turn of itself. With this turning, the truth of the coming to presence of being will turn into whatever is. In this sense, Heidegger refers to the words sung by Friedrich Hölderlin: “But where there is danger, the saving power also grows.”