Anthony J. Fejfar Book Review of "Orality and Literacy" by Walter Ong

In his book "Orality and Literacy," Walter Ong has presented an interesting account of human consciousness as it relates to lingusitics ether oral or written. Ong points out that in oral cultures, such as that of the ancient greeks or hebrews, information was passed primarily by story tellers in an auditory mode. In an oral culture, the "Word" is dyanamic, and resounds throughout the universe. Thus, when the ancient Greek philosopher Hericlitus wrote about the Logos, or "Word," he was really writing about the dynamic, resounding, oral Word, or active Word, which is Reason, or Logic. Thus, the Logos of Hericlitus or the Prologue of the Gospel of John, is really Logic or Reason, not a static word at all. Unfortunately, in a dominantly visualist culture, such as the enlightenment, the Word began to be seen as a static, printed, word, which of course, it is not. Thus, the visualist, enlightenment, rationalist mode, to the extent that it existed, was soon deconstructed by the more traditional, reason based mode, of secondary orality. Secondary orality, then, the reason based upon love, logic, and intuition, which involves an integration of the simple orality, the secondary visual, and the tertiary reason. (See, Lonergan : Simple orality (experience), Secondary visualism (analytic understanding), and Reason, (love, logic, and intuition producing Intuitive Judgment and Reflection). Thus, the false dichotomy that Fred Gedicks makes between religious orality and enlightenment, rationalist visualism, is now revealed as just that, and reason once again holds swan in ascendancy. And, since we can easily prove the efficacy of reason through the use of cognitive psychology, the idea that reason is just some sort of fluffy idea is rendered false.

(C)Perpetual Copyright 2011 CE, by Anthony J. Fejfar and Neothomism, P.C. (PA).