What does Hegel understand by the term spirit? ?

Question

What does Hegel understand by the term spirit? ?

Answer 1

For Hegel, the spirit is the universal rationality of mankind from it's begining up until the current moment. We all engage and understand the spirit (geist) as we philosophically contemplate all those tricky metaphysical issues. The spirit moves on and evolves through a series of "dialectic" progessions (a term invented after Hegel's death). The Spirit is manifested in political ideologies, religious movements, philosophy, art, culture etc... It is notoriously difficult to interpret Hegel, but it does seem that often Hegel equates the "geist" (especially the World Spirt or "weltgeist") with God.

Controversially too, in his political philosophy, Hegel mentions how the State is a manifestation of the spirit (and therefore God). For Hegel, to this end, if the individual interacts (and ultimately fuses with) the State, then he will too experience and reach a union with this Spirit.