Bob's name for McLuhan's intellectual allegiance — the Catholic revival of Thomas Aquinas's Aristotelian philosophy that Bob makes the ground of McLuhan's whole method, and one pole of the formula chart's systems triad (against LaRouche's technological liberalism, Thompson's Buddhism, Kroker's Marxism). It reaches McLuhan through the Thomist revival's Canadians — Maritain, Phelan, Gilson. Start with dialogue 13 for the "dances on the toes" figure, dialogue 08 for its doctrine.
Across the dialogues
Surfaces through Aquinas — the sensory knowledge Bob folds into McLuhan's numbing factor
The tradition first surfaces as a source — Bob traces McLuhan's "numbing factor" back to Aquinas's account of sensory knowledge.
"And so I guess that's Thomas Aquinas' sensory knowledge added to…"
Acquires doctrine — the logic of a form becoming its opposite before it becomes itself
The doctrine gets concrete content — Aquinas's teaching that a form assumes its opposite before becoming itself ("the day is becoming day while it is night"), which McLuhan "used to quote a lot."
"What about Aquinas' idea of the form is assuming the opposite before it becomes itself?"
Named outright as McLuhan's allegiance among the competing systems
Bob fixes McLuhan's allegiance — among all the "systems," McLuhan stands for Catholicism, and Thomism specifically.
"McLuhan represented Catholicism and Thomism in particular."
Fixed as McLuhan's own footing in the "dancing on the other guy's toes" figure
In the "dancing on the other guy's toes" figure Bob borrows from McLuhan, McLuhan's own footing is Catholic Thomism — the tradition he works from even while engaging its opposite.
"I said McLuhan dances on the toes of Catholic Thomism."
Locked into the formula chart as one pole of the systems triad
Thomism is set as one pole of the formula-chart triad — each thinker assigned a "system," with McLuhan as its Catholic-Thomist term.
"McLuhan is Catholic Thomism, Thompson is Buddhism, Kroker is Marxism."
Traced back to its Aristotelian root and its Canadian carriers
Bob traces the school to its philosophical root — McLuhan an Aristotelian (against the American Platonists), the Aristotle-through-Aquinas line that Catholic Thomism carries.
"McLuhan an Aristotelian. Kroker wrote about Thomas Aquinas and Aristotelianism."
Enlisted in McLuhan's "ancient quarrel" against Emerson's transcendentalism — Thomism as the multifaceted, non-print method, read through the Joyce/Aquinas labyrinth
In the Joyce/Aquinas affinity the labyrinth models the Thomist method itself — objections listed and taken up "in their own terms," a weighting of viewpoints in which none is privileged, the same shape as Cameron's "possibilities of experience."
"the labyrinth is a kind of master image."
Connections
McLuhan is the Catholic-Thomist term in Bob's scheme — "McLuhan dances on the toes of Catholic Thomism."
The opposite pole in the same figure — LaRouche's "technological liberalism" against McLuhan's Thomism.
One pole of the chart's systems triad — McLuhan/Thomism beside Thompson/Buddhism and Kroker/Marxism.
One of the "two Canadians" (with Phelan and Gilson) through whom the Thomist revival reached McLuhan.