Marx and Laozi

 Part 1: Introduction.- 1 Reading Strategies For Hegel, Marx & Laozi.- 2. Marx and Laozi: Scientific and Aesthetic Comportments to Predicaments of Social Life.- Part 2 Hegel’s Idealism.- 3 Hegel’s Idealist Conception of Philosophy.- Part 3. Hegel’s Confrontation with Laozi: An Anti-Conceptualist Defence of Laozi Against Hegel.- 4 Hegel’s Interpretation of Laozi.- 5 An Anti-Conceptualist Defence of Laozi Against Hegel.- Part 4: Wuwei and Praxis: Aesthetic Mimetic and Scientific Discursive Employment of Concepts.- 6. Wuzhi and Wuwei: The Aesthetic Mimetic Employment of concept.- 7. Praxis: Scientific Discursive Employment of Concepts.- Part 5: Dialectics of Materialism and Wu.- 8. Social Ontology of Materialism and Idealism.- 9. Materialist Dialectics in Capital and Wu.- Part 6. Marx and Laozi: Ethics.- 10. Marx and Laozi’s Ethical Naturalism.- 11. Marx and Laozi’s Moral Skepticism.- 12. The Means/Ends Dichotomy.- Part 7. Conclusion.- 13. Conclusion.

In this work the theories of Marx and Laozi are dialectically combined. The resulting synthesis is a positive materialist negation of Hegel’s idealist dialectics. Syntheses are presented for Marx and Laozi in ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, scientific method, ethics and politics: the full spectrum of their foundational principles. The book is an attempt to reconstruct a materialist interpretation of Laozi, which can be put to work for Marxist theory.

Makes a novel and unique contribution to the field of comparative philosophy of Chinese and Western philosophy Covers a very broad range of areas of philosophical interest in Laozi, Hegel and Marx in an accessible way Enters contemporary philosophy debates with works of different socio-cultural traditions