Geist
Quick Summary
The term "Geist," a German word meaning "spirit" or "mind," is central to the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel's concept of Geist describes the progression of human consciousness from basic awareness through self-consciousness, reason, and spirit, ultimately reaching absolute knowledge.12
Hegel's philosophy, particularly his work The Phenomenology of Mind, explores how the human mind evolves. He believed that while reason can identify contradictions, the higher faculty of Geist, or spirit, can synthesize these opposites, resolving them into a unified understanding. This concept of Geist carries religious implications, suggesting that finite life can ascend to infinite life through spirit. The term "zeitgeist," meaning "spirit of the time," is derived from this philosophical concept and refers to the intellectual and cultural climate of an era.231
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aestheticsKant, Schiller, and Hegel…sequence, from architecture (in which Geist [“spirit”] is only half articulate and given purely symbolic expression), through sculpture and painting, to music and thence to poetry, which is the true art of the Romantics. Finally, all art is destined to be superseded by philosophy, in which the spirit achieves final…
Read More…sequence, from architecture (in which Geist [“spirit”] is only half articulate and given purely symbolic expression), through sculpture and painting, to music and thence to poetry, which is the true art of the Romantics. Finally, all art is destined to be superseded by philosophy, in which the spirit achieves final…
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KantianismEarly Kantianism: 1790–1835…the case of Hegel, the Geist, or “absolute Spirit,” and finally, in the case of the pessimistic Romanticist Arthur Schopenhauer, the “absolute Will.” In each case (excepting Schulze) the interpretation of the thing-in-itself in a realistic metaphysical sense was rejected in favour of various degrees of transcendental idealism. Removed from…
Read More…the case of Hegel, the Geist, or “absolute Spirit,” and finally, in the case of the pessimistic Romanticist Arthur Schopenhauer, the “absolute Will.” In each case (excepting Schulze) the interpretation of the thing-in-itself in a realistic metaphysical sense was rejected in favour of various degrees of transcendental idealism. Removed from…
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelEmancipation from Kantianism of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelHis choice of the word Geist to express this his leading conception was deliberate: the word means “spirit” as well as “mind” and thus has religious overtones. Contradictions in thinking at the scientific level of Kant’s “understanding” are indeed inevitable, but thinking as an activity of spirit or “reason” can…
Read MoreHis choice of the word Geist to express this his leading conception was deliberate: the word means “spirit” as well as “mind” and thus has religious overtones. Contradictions in thinking at the scientific level of Kant’s “understanding” are indeed inevitable, but thinking as an activity of spirit or “reason” can…
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…animals by a “spirit” (Geist) that underlies the human capacity to think and to will. This capacity is the source of human estrangement from the world and is the origin of the ego and its desire for immortality. His research sought to define and structure characteristics evidenced in different…
Read More…animals by a “spirit” (Geist) that underlies the human capacity to think and to will. This capacity is the source of human estrangement from the world and is the origin of the ego and its desire for immortality. His research sought to define and structure characteristics evidenced in different…
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philosophical anthropologyThe idealism of Kant and Hegel…individual mind with that of Geist. Although this word is usually translated in English as “spirit,” it was never intended to convey something mystical but rather the essentially social and intersubjective character of knowledge and thought. Yet because idealism developed principally in Germany, the authoritarian traditions of that society have…
Read More…individual mind with that of Geist. Although this word is usually translated in English as “spirit,” it was never intended to convey something mystical but rather the essentially social and intersubjective character of knowledge and thought. Yet because idealism developed principally in Germany, the authoritarian traditions of that society have…
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