person
also known as Robert Hutchins

The University of Chicago president to whom McLuhan first pitched his idea of truth-seeking "centers" around 1946 — the dialogue-clinic proposal (drawn from Giedion) that failed at Chicago and, later, at Toronto. In Cameron and Bob's account Hutchins marks the first refusal of a plan McLuhan kept renewing. New to it — start with dialogue 18 for the proposal named and dated.

Across the dialogues

17

Enters as the recipient of McLuhan's 1946 proposal — the truth-seeking "centers" (out of Giedion) urged on the University of Chicago president

Cameron reconstructs McLuhan's 1946 pitch to Hutchins — truth-seeking centers (out of Giedion) whose "precipitate" is that people can know and apply truth, against a present that reduces everything to power.

"human beings can know truth and can apply truth."
Cameron McEwenasserted
18

The proposal named and dated — McLuhan's letter naming Voegelin and Gilson, the plan that failed at Chicago as it later failed at Toronto

Bob dates McLuhan's proposal to Hutchins (~1946) and his 1950s Toronto seminar — dialogue as the fusing of professional perspectives into a collective program.

"bringing together people with expertise and goodwill"
Bob Dobbsasserted

Cameron cites McLuhan's letter to Hutchins naming the people the plan needed — Voegelin and Gilson — and arguing the situation "dire enough" to justify hiring them away.

"Voegelin in political science and Gilson in theology"
Marshall McLuhan, read by Cameron McEwenreported

Connections

approached byMarshall McLuhan

As University of Chicago president (~1946) Hutchins received McLuhan's proposal for truth-seeking "centers," the plan that failed there.

The "centers" McLuhan urged on Hutchins were "taken right from Giedion."