(6) Hermeneutics and the Unsaid (pages 55-57)
(7) Meaning, Hermeneutic, and Interpersonal Trust (pages 58-60)
(8) Hermeneutic and Communication in Oral Culture (pages 61-66)
(9) Logos and Digitization (pages 67-84)
(10) Hermeneutics in Children Learning to Speak (pages 85-89)
(11) Language, Technology, and the Human (pages 90-93)
Epilogue: The Mythology of Logos (pages 94-110)
As a thought experiment, we may wonder what further additions Ong would have made, had he continued to work on this book. For example, would he have perhaps added material to further develop some, or all, of the chapters? Or would he have added further chapters?
The editors have also included Ong's previously unpublished paper "Time, Digitization, and Dali's Memory" (pages 183-194).
Even though I commend the editors for getting Ong's incomplete manuscript published by a prestigious university press, I wish that the editors had included some of Ong's published essays that are closely related to material in his incomplete book -- perhaps as appendices. After all, only pages 11-110 and 183-194 are by Ong himself -- barely more than 110 pages all total. In certain respects (most notably in the "Select Bibliography," pages 209-216) this short book is tricked out as though somebody thinks that William J. Kennedy's words quoted above ("This short book could have an important impact on issues of cognition, interpretation, and the reception of literary and philosophical texts") might actually somehow come true. Really? I would be delighted to see this short book have an important impact along the lines that Professor Kennedy envisions. But I do not think that this is going to happen.
So here are a few of Ong's relevant publications that I wish the editors had included in their volume:
(1) "Hermeneutic Forever: Voice, Text, Digitization, and the 'I'" in the journal Oral Tradition, volume 10, number 1 (March 1995): pages 3-36; reprinted in volume four of Ong's Faith and Contexts (Scholars Press, 1999, pages 183-204), mentioned above.
(2) "Information and/or Communication: Interactions" in the periodical Communication Research Trends, volume 16, number 3 (1996): pages 3-16; reprinted in An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry (Hampton Press, 2002, pages 505-525), mentioned above.
(3) "Digitization Ancient and Modern: Beginnings of Writing and Today's Computers" in Communication Research Trends, volume 18, number 2 (1998): pages 4-21; also reprinted in An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry (pages 527-549).
In any event, people who now read Ong's posthumously published incomplete book should also read these three articles.
Regarding Ong's chapter on "Orality, Writing, Presence" (pages 20-24), I would call the attention of the interested reader not only to Ong's book The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History, mentioned above, but also to his essay "Technological Development and Writer-Subject-Reader Immediacies" in the book Oral and Written Communication: Historical Approaches, edited by Richard Leo Enos (Sage Publications, 1990, pages 206-215). In addition, I would call attention to Hans Belting's book of related interest, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, translated by Edmund Jephcott (University of Chicago Press, 1994).
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