Spring 1999
Hegel and Geist
OBJECTIVES:
1. Be able to define Geist and to discuss related English words and their relevance to the concept of Geist.
2. Be able to discuss the development of Geist in history and its ultimate goal, outcome, and purpose.
3. Be able to discuss Hegel's philosophy of history.
4. Be able to discuss the State as the logical expression of Geist.
5. Be able to discuss Hegel's concept of collective identity, and how it is an outgrowth of the philosophy of Kant.
HEGELIAN QUOTATIONS:
From Philosophy of Religion
"What God creates he himself is . . . God is manifestation of his own self. God is . . . the
absolutely true, that from which everything proceeds and into which everything returns,
that upon which everything is dependent and apart from which nothing else has absolute, true
independence."
"Whatever subsists has its root and subsistence only in this One . . . God is the absolute
substance, the only true actuality . . . All through his development God does not step outside his
unity with himself."
From The Philosophy of History
"Reason is the substance of the Universe, viz, that by which and in which all reality has its being
and subsistence. On the other hand, it is the infinite energy of the Universe; since Reason is not
so powerless as to be incapable of producing anything but a mere ideal, a mere intention - having
its place outside reality, nobody knows where; something separate and abstract, in the heads of
certain human beings. It is the infinite complex of things, their entire essence and truth. It is its
own material, which it commits to its own active energy to work up; not needing, as finite action
does, the conditions of an external material of given means from which it may obtain its support,
and the objects of its activity. It supplies its own nourishment and is the object of its own
operations. While it is exclusively its own basis of existence and absolute final aim, it is also the
energizing power realizing this aim; developing it not only in the phenomena of the natural, but
also of the spiritual universe - the history of the world."
"Spirit may be defined [in contrast to matter] as that which has its center in itself . . . This
self-contained existence of Spirit is none other than self-consciousness - consciousness of one's
own being . . . It involves an appreciation of its own nature, and also an energy enabling it to
realize itself; to make itself actually that which it is potentially."
"The essential nature of freedom . . . is to be displayed as coming to a consciousness of itself and
thereby realizing its existence. Itself is its own object of attainment, and the sole aim of Spirit."
"Spirit is essentially the result of its own activity; its activity is the transcending of immediate, simple, unreflected existence - the negation of that existence; and the returning into itself."
"Although Nature changes, it does so only is self-repeating cycles. Only in those changes which take place in the region of Spirit does anything new arise."
"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State. For his spiritual reality consists in this, that his own essence - Reason - is objectively present to him, that it possesses objective immediate existence for him. . . . For Truth is the unity of the universal and subjective will; and the Universal is to be found in the State, in its laws, its universal and rational arrangements. The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth. We have in it, therefore, the object of history in a more definite shape than before; that in which Freedom obtains objectivity. For Law is the objectivity of the Spirit . . . Only that will which obeys law, is free; for it obeys itself - it is independent and so free."
I. Geist
A. Hegel's topic
B. What is Geist?
C. English words
I) ghost
ii) geyser
iii) gist
D. Kant's noumena and German Idealism
E. Kant's collective individuals and Geist
F. Phases of Human Development and Geist
II. What is the ultimate goal and purpose of human existence?
A. Kantian morals
B. Hegelian Dialectic
i) teleology and Christian eschatology
C. Laws of human progress
i) the development of self-consciousness
ii) freedom and rationality
iii) and phases of human history
A) Dialectic of Master and Slave
iv) growth in knowledge and power=attainment of God
A) from family to the state
B) Absolute Sprit
C) art, religion, and philosophy
v) relation to Greek concepts
III. Hegel's legacy
A. The notion of History
B. The idea that our age is a new age and the end of something else
