Introduction: textual dimensions and relations

Abstract

A considerable body of research in the humanities and social sciences has dealt with the similarities and differences between speech and writing. Work in history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, comparative literature, and linguistics has described ways in which the choice between speech and writing is closely related to developments in other social institutions. For example, the development of widespread alphabetic literacy in ancient Greece was probably a catalyst for other social and intellectual developments there. Widespread literacy enabled a fuller understanding and participation by citizens in the workings of government, which might have promoted a democratic form of government in which citizens play a relatively active role. Literacy enabled a permanent, accurate record of ideas and the possibility of knowledge without a living ‘knower’. As such it probably aided in the transition from ‘myth’ to ‘history’ and the development of critical attitudes towards knowledge. Prior to literacy and a permanent record of beliefs and knowledge, a society can alter its beliefs and not be faced with the possibility of a contradiction; competing ideas which evolve slowly over generations will be accepted as equally factual when there is no contradictory record of earlier ideas. Written records, however, force us to acknowledge the contradictory ideas of earlier societies and thus to regard knowledge with a critical and somewhat skeptical attitude. For example, we know that earlier societies believed that the earth was flat, because these beliefs are permanently recorded in writing.