Geist
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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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.
