Walter J. Ong

From the blurb: Profound changes in thought processes and in personality and social structures were brought about by the invention of writing and the transformation from one stage of consciousness to another: from primary oral cultures to literate ones. Walter Ong here surveys and interprets the extensive work done during the last few decades, by himself and others, on the differences between orality and literacy.

"This well-chosen selection contributes to our understanding of the psychological and cultural complexities of these minority groups and helps us, as Baker suggests, 'arrive at a [more] just assessment of the distinctive character of American social and intellectual history.'"--World Literature Today.

"Language in all its modes--oral, written, print, electronic--claims the central role in Walter J. Ong's acclaimed speculations on human culture. After his death, his archives were found to contain unpublished drafts of a final book manuscript that Ong envisioned as a distillation of his life's work. This first publication of Language as Hermeneutic, reconstructed from Ong's various drafts by Thomas D. Zlatic and Sara van den Berg, is more than a summation of his thinking. It develops new arguments around issues of cognition, interpretation, and language. Digitization, he writes, is inherent in all forms of "writing," from its early beginnings in clay tablets. As digitization increases in print and now electronic culture, there is a corresponding need to counter the fractioning of digitization with the unitive attempts of hermeneutics, particularly hermeneutics that are modeled on oral rather than written paradigms. In addition to the edited text of Language as Hermeneutic, this volume includes essays on the reconstruction of Ong's work and its significance within Ong's intellectual project, as well as a previously unpublished article by Ong, "Time, Digitization, and Dalí's Memory," which further explores language's role in preserving and enhancing our humanity in the digital age"--

"Renaissance logician, philosopher, humanist, and teacher, Peter Ramus (1515-1572) is best known for his attack on Aristotelian logic, his radical pedagogical theories, and his new interpretation of the cannons of rhetoric. His work, published in Latin and translated into many languages, has influenced the study of Renaissance literature, rhetoric, education, logic, and - more recently - media studies." "A canonical text for enthusiasts of media, Renaissance literature, and intellectual history, Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue is a review of the history of Ramist scholarship and his quarrels with Aristotle. A key influence on Marshall McLuhan, with whom Ong enjoys the status of honorary guru among technophiles, this study remains the most detailed account of Ramus's method ever published."--BOOK JACKET.