Geist
Geist (
German pronunciation: [ˈɡaɪst]) is a
German word. Depending on context it can be translated as the English words
mind,
spirit, or
ghost, covering the
semantic field
of these three English nouns. Some English translators resort to using
"spirit/mind" or "spirit (mind)" to help convey the meaning of the term.
[1][2]
Geist is a central concept in
Hegel's
The Phenomenology of Spirit (
Phänomenologie des Geistes).
SUCH THAT
TO BE - to be...
depending on context of the situation
Etymology and translation
Edmund Spenser's usage of the English-language word 'ghost', in his 1590
The Faerie Queene,
demonstrates the former, broader meaning of the English-language term.
In this context, the term describes the sleeping mind of a living
person, rather than a ghost, or spirit of the dead. The word
Geist is etymologically identical to the English
ghost (from a
Common Germanic *gaistaz) but has retained its full range of meanings, while some applications of the English word
ghost had become obsolete by the 17th century, replaced with the Latinate
spirit.
[3] For this reason, English-language translators of the term
Geist
from the German language face some difficulty in rendering the term,
and often disagree as to the best translation in a given context.
Analogous terms in other languages include the Greek word πνεύμα (
pneuma), the Latin
animus and
anima, the French
esprit, and the Chinese medical 神
shen.
[citation needed]
Hegel
Geist is a central concept in
Hegel's
The 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 philosophizing about history.
[citation needed] Weltgeist is effected in history through the
mediation of various
Volksgeister ("Folk Spirits"), the
great men of history, such as
Napoleon, are the "
concrete universal".
[citation needed]
This has led some to claim that Hegel favored 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, the great hero is unwittingly utilized by
Geist or
Absolute Spirit,
by a "ruse 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.
