Spirit and Dao: Two politico-ecological dialectics of freedom in Hegel and Laozi

This dissertation compares Hegel and Laozi in regard to the way their respective religious and metaphysical visions are related to their different views of society and polity. Using the vague category of "the ultimate condition of the world's possibility," I first examine how Hegel's "archeoteleological" configuration of the ultimate condition gives rise to a more human-centered and "civilizational" vision of freedom, while Laozi's "an-archical" configuration of the ultimate leads to a more nature-oriented and "primitivist" vision of freedom. Next, I bring the two visions into dialogue with each other in order to produce the hybrid religious vision of solidarity of others who recognize one another without reserve. I conclude by delineating the contours of a globally responsible Christian theology that attempts to enflesh the hybridized vision in a solidary Christian narrative for the healing of the present postcolonial/neocolonial global context.