In 1988 I broadcast a series of programs called “Literacy: The Medium and the Message”which I have already posted on this site. The series explored the latest scholarship on a theme first broached at the University of Toronto by Harold Innis: how the techniques by which we communicate shape the way we think about the world. It was recorded at a conference organized by two University of Toronto professors, David Olson and Derrick de Kerckhove, and held at the University of Toronto in 1987. Five years later David Olson organized a two-day workshop which posed the topic of modes of thought, or mentalities, in more general terms - looking not just at the cognitive implications of orality and literacy but at all the ways in which our styles and habits of thought are formed. He assembled psychologists, anthropologists, historians and philosopher interested in this question, and, knowing of my continuing interest in the subject, he again invited me to observe and report on the proceeedings. The result was a book called Modes of Thought, edited by David and Nancy Torrance, which was published by Cambridge in 1996, and a series of four radio programs, also called “Modes of Thought” which I broadcast in 1995. Their theme, to say the least, remains current. The participants are as follows:
Part One: David Olson, Brian Stock, and Myron Tuman
Part Two: Jerome Bruner, Carole Feldman, and Keith Oatley
Part Three: Geoffrey Lloyd, Paul Thagard, and Deanna Kuhn
Part Four: Scott Attran and Ian Hacking