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(German, spirit, soul) A quality that animates the mind. The Zeitgeist is the spirit of the age (see Romanticism). Geisteswissenschaften are the human or mental sciences. This term appears in some Hegelian writing, and occurs in the influential translation into German by Schiel of J. S. Mill's Logic, where it corresponds to the moral sciences. It is particularly associated with the later works of Dilthey.
Geist is a German word that does not translate very well into English. It is
usually translated as mind, spirit, or even ghost but can also be associated with drive or motivation. Some English translators resort to using
"spirit-mind" to help convey the meaning of the term. Closer approximations include the Greek word πνεύμα and the Latin animus
and anima (all quite very similar in meaning).
It is a central concept in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (Phänomenologie des Geistes). According to Hegel, the Weltgeist ("World Spirit") is not an actual thing one might come upon or a God-like thing beyond, but a means of philosophising about history. Weltgeist is effected in history through the mediation of various Volksgeist ("Folk Spirits"), the great men of history, such as Napoleon, are the "concrete universal".
This has led some to claim that Hegel favoured the great man theory, although his philosophy of history, in particular concerning the role of the "universal state" (Universal Stand, which means as well "order" or "statute" than "state"), and of an "End of History" is much more complex.
For Hegel's, the great hero is unwittingly utilised by Geist or Absolute Spirit, by a "rouse of Reason" as Hegel puts it, and is irrelevant to history once his historic mission is accomplished; he is thus submitted to the teleological principle of history, a principle which allows Hegel to re-read all the history of philosophy as culminating in his philosophy of history.
Weltgeist, the world spirit concept designates an idealistic principle of world explanation, which can be found from the beginnings of philosophy up to more recent time. The concept of world spirit was already accepted by the idealistic schools of ancient Indian philosophy, whereby one explained objective reality as its product. (See metaphysical objectivism) In the early philosophy of Greek antiquity, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle all paid homage, amongst other things, to the concept of world spirit. Hegel later based his philosophy of history on it.
Geist is a component of several German loanwords such as Zeitgeist, the spirit of the time or collective unconscious, and poltergeist, the mischievous ghosts that are believed to make noises.
Early Germanic tribes, like other pagan tribes around the world, had customs of consulting dead ancestors at feasts. The English words "ghost" and "guest" are said to have descended from the German Geist due to the Northern pagan custom in which the ancestral spirits were invited as honored guests. [dubious ]
In German (Roman Catholic) theology, the term Heiliger Geist refers to the Holy Spirit.
Geisteskrank is a German word literally meaning "of an ill mind" and is sometimes used to describe someone suffering from mental illness.
Geistlos refers to being mindless or without spirit.
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 | Philosophy Dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Copyright © 1994, 1996, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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