Geist

Geist (German pronunciation: ) is a German noun with a degree of importance in German philosophy. Its semantic field corresponds to English ghost, spirit, mind, intellect. Some English translators resort to using 'spirit/mind' or 'spirit (mind)' to help convey the meaning of the term. I saw the Emperor – this world-soul – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it. Geist (German pronunciation: ) is a German noun with a degree of importance in German philosophy. Its semantic field corresponds to English ghost, spirit, mind, intellect. Some English translators resort to using 'spirit/mind' or 'spirit (mind)' to help convey the meaning of the term. Geist is also a central concept in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's 1807 The Phenomenology of Spirit (Phänomenologie des Geistes). Notable compounds, all associated with Hegel's view of world history of the late 18th century, include Weltgeist 'world-spirit', Volksgeist 'national spirit' and Zeitgeist 'spirit of the age'. German Geist (masculine gender) continues Old High German geist, attested as the translation of Latin spiritus. It is the direct cognate of English ghost, from a West Germanic gaistaz. Its derivation from a PIE root g̑heis- 'to be agitated, frightened' suggests that the Germanic word originally referred to frightening (c.f. English ghastly) apparitions or ghosts, and may also have carried the connotation of 'ecstatic agitation, furor' related to the cult of Germanic Mercury. As the translation of biblical Latin spiritus (Greek πνεῦμα) 'spirit, breath' the Germanic word acquires a Christian meaning from an early time, notably in reference to the Holy Spirit (Old English sē hālga gāst 'the Holy Ghost', OHG ther heilago geist, Modern German der Heilige Geist).The English word is in competition with Latinate spirit from the Middle English period, but its broader meaning is preserved well into the early modern period. The German noun much like English spirit could refer to spooks or ghostly apparitions of the dead, to the religious concept, as in the Holy Spirit, as well as to the 'spirit of wine', i.e. ethanol. However, its special meaning of 'mind, intellect' never shared by English ghost is acquired only in the 18th century, under the influence of French esprit.In this sense it became extremely productive in the German language of the 18th century in general as well as in 18th-century German philosophy.Geist could now refer to the quality of intellectual brilliance, to wit, innovation, erudition, etc.It is also in this time that the adjectival distinction of geistlich 'spiritual, pertaining to religion' vs. geistig 'intellectual, pertaining to the mind' begins to be made. Reference to spooks or ghosts is made by the adjective geisterhaft 'ghostly, spectral'. Numerous compounds are formed in the 18th to 19th centuries, some of them loan translations of French expressions, such as Geistesgegenwart = présence d'esprit ('mental presence, acuity'), Geistesabwesenheit = absence d’esprit ('mental absence, distraction'), geisteskrank 'mentally ill', geistreich 'witty, intellectually brilliant', geistlos 'unintelligent, unimaginative, vacuous' etc. It is from these developments that certain German compounds containing -geist have been loaned into English, such as Zeitgeist. German Geist in this particular sense of 'mind, wit, erudition; intangible essence, spirit' has no precise English-language equivalent, for which reason translators sometimes retain Geist as a German loanword. 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 object or a transcendental, Godlike thing, but a means of philosophizing about history. Weltgeist is effected in history through the mediation of various Volksgeister ('national spirits'), the great men of history, such as Napoleon, are the 'concrete universal'. 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' (Universalstaat, which means a universal 'order' or 'statute' rather 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 he puts it, and is irrelevant to history once his historic mission is accomplished; he is thus subjected to the teleological principle of history, a principle which allows Hegel to reread the history of philosophy as culminating in his philosophy of history.