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From Sound to Sign: Writing as Worldmaking in Vilém Flusser and Walter J. Ong

Antônio Frederico LasalviaMarcos Beccari

Writing changes the world. Or so thought scholars Vilém Flusser and Walter J. Ong in the second half of the 20th century. This paper explores the ontological and epistemological consequences of the written word according to the complementary views of these two authors. The pre-eminence of language for the constitution of reality was a stance assumed by Vilém Flusser already in his first book (1963) and later developed throughout his career. In his view, linear thought as we know it now became possible as a result of the technology of writing. Flusser’s reading deeply resonates with the Ong’s study of the transition from oral to literate cultures, as the latter posits that the written record allowed for a reformulation of thinking itself, an opening of the possibilities we know today. Although they wrote in different contexts, the questions they tackle and the conclusions they reach have profound similarities. For comparison, this study relies mainly on ideas found mainly in two seminal publications: Língua e Realidade [Language and Reality] by Vilém Flusser, and Orality and Literacy: the technologizing of the word, by Walter J. Ong.