Walter Ong

Some of Ong's interests:

• the historical development of visualist tendencies in Western philosophic thought

• the mathematical transformation of thought in medieval and early modern logic and beyond

• oral cyclic thought, which is characteristic of primary oral cultures, versus linear or historical or evolutionary thought, which depends on writing

• the movement from oral heroic poetry to mock-heroic poetry in print culture to the realist tradition in literature to the modern antihero

• the historical development in manuscript culture and print culture of the inward turn of personalized ego-consciousness, or individuality

• the new dimensions of orality fostered by modern communication media that accentuate sound, which Ong calls secondary orality as it succeeds from, relies on, and coexists with writing

• the origins and development of the Western educational system

• the role and effects of Learned Latin in Western culture