What Hegel meant by the Absolute Spirit

Today we continue to introduce the philosopher Hegel of absolute idealism, "absolute spirit" is a core concept of Hegel's philosophy, and this concept is a key to open Hegel's philosophy. So what is the Absolute Spirit? Let's look at them separately first.

The absolute spirit is a certain cosmic spirit that exists objectively and independently, and this spirit is actually a kind of logical thinking, which is detached from man and separated from the objective world, and is only expressed in the form of concepts.

The Absolute Spirit is the reality that precedes the eternal existence of nature and human society, and is the inner essence and core of all things in the universe, and all things are only its external manifestations. The Absolute Spirit is a living, active force.

According to Hegel, the spirit never stops moving, it is always moving forward, and the dialectical movement of the spirit is the "inner development of concepts".

Absolute spiritual stage.

The Absolute Spirit, which rejects the bondage of nature in the natural stage and returns to itself, is the highest stage of its development. It has successively manifested itself as subjective spirit (individual consciousness), objective spirit (social consciousness) and absolute spirit. The Absolute Spirit knows itself through three forms: art, philosophy, and religion.

The development of the subjective spirit is divided into three small stages, soul, consciousness, and spirit. The soul is the chaotic spirit of nature, and the subject and object are not separated. In the stage of consciousness, consciousness itself, which is separated from the subject and object, reaches the rationality of the unity of the subject and object.

Spirit is the unity of soul and consciousness, the unity of self and object.

The objective spirit is divided into three stages: abstract law, morality, and ethics. Abstract law is the realization of itself through the possession of external objects. Morality is the inner norm of people, and ethics is the norm of society, which is the unity of abstract law and morality.

The Absolute Spirit finally knows itself in philosophy, reaching the absolute unity of thinking and being.

It means that reality is imperfect and flawed, so perfection does not exist, that is, it is contrary to the real world.

Engels summarized Hegel's "Logic" and extracted three laws: the law of the unity of opposites, the law of quantitative change and qualitative change, and the law of negation of negation. The law of quantitative change and qualitative change is the internal law of things, and the law of negation of negation is the law of the development of things.

And the core of these three laws is: the law of the unity of opposites. The other two laws are the forms of the law of the unity of opposites.

The law of the unity of opposites reveals that everything is a unity of contradictions, contradictions are the source and driving force of the development and change of things, and the vitality of ideals is expressed in the negation of reality, which is the expression of the contradiction between reality and ideals.

The Absolute Spirit manifests itself in its development and ultimately develops into the Absolute Spirit itself. The process of its development is included in the book "Logic".

Summary. Hegel said: "As the entity of reality, the spirit is a people, and as the consciousness of reality, it is the citizen." ”

Hegel said: "As the entity of reality, the spirit is a people, and as the consciousness of reality, it is the citizen." ”

In Hegel's mind, the model of the state was the ancient Greek city-state society, a state founded by people (including a large number of people who were not related by blood) gathered from all over the world by open reason and a spirit of contract. This is completely different from China's national and auspicious spiritual outlook of "family and world" since Xia Yu, and it is not a concept of kinship based on natural reproduction ("descendants of Yan and Huang"), but a political and legal concept based on "the law of man".

In The Philosophy of History, Hegel concludes: "Everything that belongs to 'spirit' is far from them (the Chinese). There is not even a "spirit", what kind of "Chinese spirit" will there be when burying enlightenment?

Hegel's crooked argument is obviously a prejudiced nonsense.

The Chinese spirit is the spirit of the Chinese nation. "The Chinese spirit is the spirit of eternal youth and the immortal spirit of the nation." The character of the Chinese and the characteristics of Chinese civilization can be summed up in eight words:

Deep, broad, pure, simple, sensitive; In contrast, the Germanic spirit is characterized by the "cult of power".

The spirit of China's escort culture and history takes morality as the core of the debate, and it is a kind of "moral spirit" that has lasted for thousands of years. Without this kind of "national spirit," it would be impossible to give birth to a great Chinese nation.

In Hegel's view, all historical phenomena are manifestations of the so-called "world spirit"; In different historical stages, the world spirit is embodied in the "national spiritual intellectuals" of certain so-called "world nations" (including China). Here, the "national spirit" refers to the will and mobility of a nation. Hegel arbitrarily believed that the spiritual sun of the world first rose from the east, and that the eastern civilizations (including the Chinese civilization, as well as the Indian, Persian, and Egyptian civilizations) were the lowest civilizations in human history.

Greece is the youth of human history; Rome was the prime of human history. In the end, the "sun" landed on the Germanic peoples, realizing the ultimate goal of the world spirit and becoming the highest stage of history.