Our website: www.justandsinner.org Patreon: / justandsinner This is an explanation of Hegel's idea of the Geist as explained in his Phenomenology of Spirit.
Regarding the claim of Hegel's immanent monism: No, according to Hegel the beings of this finite world cease to exist, because they are not the full realization of their logical concept. In the SoL the ideas or concepts are not "mechanical", independend parts, but moments of an organical, living, whole unity. This is not this world.
Regarding the claim of Hegel's historicism: No, on the contrary. There's the distinction between finite Geist, which could be understood as "the world", and absolute Geist, God, which is eternal and reveals himself. Thus the "evolution" of culture(s). The pure depiction of the absolute Geist in Hegel's philosophy is the Science of Logic (SoL), in Hegel's words, "the thinking of God", "the exposition of God as he is in his eternal essence behind the creation of nature and a finite mind". SoL contains the eternal "laws" of nature and mind, therefore of morality, too. Hegel's philosophies of nature and spirit are the applications of this logic.
I've been pondering how to translate Geist to English. You use spirit, much like the spirit of the law. Perhaps the etymologically closest word would be "gist", though it doesn't ring as strong nowadays as the word Geist does.
Very helpful overview. Hegel's Geist sounds akin to evolutionary panpsychism. The magicians call this geist that animates the world "Baphomet" and depict it with a chimeric form to represent the various aspects of the multiplicity that are joined into unity.
This is not my reading of Hegel at all. He does have a very clear philosophy of universals, I think that there is where is more compelling. But we live in a world that consciously or unconsciously keeps trying to relativize everything.
Careful, please. Hegel himself says: "Ich bin ein Lutheraner und durch Philosophie ebenso ganz im Luthertum befestigt." ("I am a Lutheran and also fully grounded in Lutheranism through Philosophy.") For Hegel Spirit does not evolve but reveal himself. (Regarding my nickname Theosis - I don't mean it, not in the orthodoxe sense.)
I don't know man. I still like Hegel. Historicism is still better then the pure abstraction of English analytical philosophy. I even like Nietzsche better than anglo-philosophy - and I'm a Christian! I remember reading Hume in philosophy class, and felt nausea over the radical scepticism. Continental philosophy is a good counterbalance to that tbh.
