Ong delivered a plenary address at the annual meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, which was published as "The Agonistic Base of Scientifically Abstract Thought: Issues in FIGHTING FOR LIFE: CONTEST, SEXUALITY, AND CONSCIOUSNESS," in PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION, volume 56 (1982): pages 109-124. Ong's essay is reprinted in the 600-page anthology titled AN ONG READER: CHALLENGES FOR FURTHER INQUIRY (Hampton Press, 2002, pages 479-495).
However, even though Ong had studies philosophy as part of his Jesuit training and had further studied the history of philosophy in his massively researched Harvard University doctoral dissertation, he did not hold a Ph.D. in philosophy or teach in a department of philosophy. His Ph.D. was in English, and he taught in the Department of English at Saint Louis University.
In addition to being a cultural historian and theorist, Ong was also a religious thinker. He brought his work as a cultural historian and theorist together with his interests as a religious thinker most notably in his books THE PRESENCE OF THE WORD: SOME PROLEGOMENA FOR CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS HISTORY (1967), MENTIONED ABOVE, and HOPKINS, THE SELF, AND GOD (University of Toronto Press, 1986), the published version of Ong's 1981 Alexander Lectures at the University of Toronto.
Ong does a fine job of contextualizing John Henry Newman's book AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE (1845) in his article "Newman's ESSAY ON DEVELOPMENT [1845] in Its Intellectual Milieu" in the Jesuit-sponsored journal THEOLOGICAL STUDIES, volume 7, number 1 (March 1946): pages 3-45. It is reprinted in volume two of Ong's FAITH AND CONTEXTS (Scholars Press, 1992, pages 1-37). Because of the significant role Newman played in Hopkins' life, Ong returns to discussing Newman in HOPKINS, THE SELF, AND GOD (pages 18-19, 24, 90, 95-96, 119, 124-126, 132-133).
Thus far, the most extensive discussion of Ong's thought in a book by a Roman Catholic theologian can be found in Marinus Iwuchukwu's book MEDIA ECOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM: ENGAGING WALTER ONG AND JACQUES DUPUIS TOWARD EFFECTIVE INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE (Saarbrucken, Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010, esp. pages 150-205). As far as I know, no professor of philosophy anywhere in the world, Catholic or non-Catholic, has discussed Ong's thought extensively.
In all of Ong's 400 or so publications, he writes as an orthodox Roman Catholic priest. He was never censured for any of his publications by the hyper-active Vatican thought police. For a discussion of some of the mischief of the Vatican thought police in recent decades, see Matthew Fox's candid book THE POPE'S WAR: WHY RATZINGER'S SECRET CRUSADE HAS IMPERILED THE CHURCH AND HOW IT CAN BE SAVED (Sterling Ethos, 2011).
For complete bibliographic information about Ong's 400 or so publications, see Thomas M. Walsh's bibliography of Ong's publications in the anthology LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND IDENTITY: THE LEGACY OF WALTER J. ONG, S.J., edited by Sara van den Berg and Walsh (2011, pages 185-245).
In THE PRESENCE OF THE WORD (1967), Ong claims that primary oral cultures, and residual forms of primary oral cultures, are basically oriented to thinking in terms of virtue and vice (pages 29, 80, 83-85, 200-222, 255-258). Of course such cultures may have different conceptions of what exactly is considered to be virtue and virtuous, and what is considered vice. In any event, their common denominator is that they all are basically honor/shame cultures.
Ong considers the Hebrew Bible to be an anthology of oral thought and expression. In the book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible, we read often about the "fool." In those proverbs about virtue and vice, and thus also about honor and shame, the term "fool" is used as a conceptual construct and personification to represent the person who acts in ways that are not virtuous and honorable.
ONG AND MACINTYRE
Arguably MacIntyre's book is more accessible to the college-educated "plain person" (his term, pages 10, 11, 166) than any of Ong's books are. In this respect, I would liken MacIntyre's book to certain books by Mortimer J. Adler, a philosopher and public intellectual.
Next, I'd like to quote and briefly comment on a statement that Ong makes in his article "Hermeneutic Forever: Voice, Text, Digitization, and the 'I'" in the journal ORAL TRADITION, volume 10, number 1 (March 1995): pages 3-36. It is reprinted in volume four of Ong's FAITH AND CONTEXTS (Scholars Press, 1999, pages 183-204), from which I am quoting:
"[I]nterlocutors can of course come to a satisfactory and true conclusion, not by reason of words alone, but because the meeting of their minds, mutual understanding, is realized not alone through words spoken but also through the nonverbal existential context, such as the unconsciously shared cultural or personal memories out of which and in which the words are spoken. Plato notes that truth can be arrived at only after dialogue within long mutual acquaintanceship, 'partnership in a common life' (SEVENTH LETTER, 341). Words alone will not do: The unsaid, in which words are embedded, must be shared in interpersonal relationship. Communication in words-and-context will yield truth here and now, will satisfy the demands of the present quest for truth even though the context and the words themselves are incomplete and could, of course, absolutely speaking, be subject to further verbalization and the grasp of truth thereby enlarged and deepened" (page 187).
I should point out that Ong usually uses Plato as a foil against which to make certain counter-points. So it is unusual that Ong here finds something in Plato that he can agree with and affirm.
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