Zeitgeist

In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a Zeitgeist (German pronunciation: [ˈtsaɪtɡaɪst] ; lit. 'spirit of the age'; capitalized in German) is a way of referring to the intellectual, cultural, ethical and political climate of a given epoch in world history. It is often described as an invisible agent, force, or daemon that seems to dominate the characteristics of a particular period. The term is usually associated with Georg W. F. Hegel, contrasting with Hegel's use of Volksgeist ("national spirit") and Weltgeist ("world-spirit"), although the word itself predates Hegel and was popularized by Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The expression belongs to a wider family of notions such as "spirit of the age", "spirit of the times" or genius saeculi ("spirit of the century"), which had circulated in Latin and the major European languages since the early modern period to express the idea that people's thoughts and actions are shaped by the social environment of their time rather than only by timeless truths or individual genius. In 1769 Herder translated the Latin phrase genius seculi used by the philologist Christian Adolph Klotz as Zeitgeist in his aesthetic essay Kritische Wälder, and the term was taken up in later discussions of philosophy of history and history of ideas. Other philosophers who were associated with related ideas include Herbert Spencer and Voltaire. Contemporary use of the term sometimes, more colloquially, is similar to the Overton Window in referring to a pattern of fashions or fads that prescribe what is considered to be acceptable or tasteful for an era: for example, in fields such as architecture, psychotherapy, journalism or popular culture. The term is widely used, often without translation, in many languages to denote the "spirit" or dominant climate of a particular period.