Geist (Spirit)

The collective mind of humanity, gradually realizing its own freedom.

For Hegel, Geist — spirit, mind — is not your private psychology but the shared mind of a culture, an age, ultimately of humanity itself. History is the autobiography of Spirit coming to know itself. Art, religion, philosophy, and politics are stages in this self-knowledge. Marx will materialize it; Nietzsche will mock it; Heidegger will quietly inherit it.