Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist (German pronunciation: [ˈtsaɪtɡaɪst]  ( listen)) is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age." [1] Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and/or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambience, morals, sociocultural direction or mood of an era.

The term zeitgeist is from German Zeit- 'time' (cognate with English tide and "time") and Geist- 'spirit' (cognate with English ghost).

Contents

Origins

The concept of Zeitgeist goes back to Johann Gottfried Herder and other German Romanticists such as Cornelius Jagdmann, but is best known in relation to Hegel's philosophy of history. In 1769 Herder wrote a critique of the work Genius seculi by the philologist Christian Adolph Klotz and introduced the word Zeitgeist into German as a translation of genius seculi (Latin: genius - "guardian spirit" and saeculi - "of the century").

The German Romanticists habitually attempted to reduce the past to essences and treated the Zeitgeist as a historical character in its own right, rather than a generalized description for an era.

Usage in modern English

Richard Dawkins used the term to refer to the "moral Zeitgeist" in his book The God Delusion.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Zeitgeist". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. (2003). August 7, 2009. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Zeitgeist. 
  2. ↑ Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 406. ISBN 0-618-68000-4. ; on-linePDF (101 KB)

External links