Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Date

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Liberal Studies

Department

Liberal Studies

Committee Chair

Jeremy Killian

Committee Member

Dursun Peksen

Committee Member

Kendra Murphy

Abstract

Providence, as imagined by early Christian thinkers under the influence of Greek philosophy, denoted the divine preservation, governance, and ordering of creation throughout history, providing a teleological framework through which events could be understood as moving in an intelligible and ultimately meaningful direction. From the Enlightenment forward, this teleological framework was gradually secularized, and its assumptions about historical direction and order were recast as attributes of progress. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of episteme and Fernand Braudel’s longue durée, this work surveys how the teleological framework of providential theology has been inherited, modified, and rearticulated to provide existential orientation, moral coherence, and a sense of historical direction in modernity’s pursuit of progress. The purpose of this survey is to provide background for the central question of this dissertation, i.e., does progress remain a viable teleology capable of orienting human subjects toward meaningful futures, or has its capacity to provide existential direction begun to destabilize? Because teleological frameworks are not directly observable, their operation must be inferred from the assumptions, expectations, and orientations they produce in the subjects who inhabit them. The mixed-methods research design employed in this project therefore examines within its cohort both explicit world beliefs and speculative future imaginaries as complementary sites through which the teleological dynamics of progress in contemporary consciousness may be observed. The findings from this approach suggest that while the structure of progress remains largely intact, it persists alongside growing signs of teleological strain, including diminished confidence in systemic coherence, ambivalent attitudes toward technological advancement, and the proliferation of dystopian, post-fulfillment, and restorative imaginaries. These patterns indicate not the disappearance of teleology but its increasingly unstable persistence under conditions in which its capacity to organize meaning continues to weaken. While questions concerning the fulfillment, purpose, and adequacy of progress as a source of meaning have accompanied the expansion of capitalist modernity from its earliest formations, what may distinguish the present moment is not the emergence of such concerns but the degree to which the teleology of progress has become ambient, less a proposition to be defended than the assumed architecture of reality itself. From this perspective, the findings of the research at the center of this project may reflect the cohort’s encounter with the limits of an episteme whose underlying assumptions have become increasingly difficult to reconcile with the lived experience of those who inhabit it.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest/Clarivate.

Notes

Open Access

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