Let's Think About 'Spirit'

 I read, a long time ago, a profoundly impactful work of the continent; G.W.F. Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit."  I highly recommend it to my readers out there who seek to learn about the Western traditions in the Right's philosophy.  The first thing that struck me, is "How can 'spirit' be phenomenologically discerned"?  I mean, isn't spirit that one intangible thing about us- our 'soul' so-to-speak -that wee cannot see?  It seems counter-intuitive to call it a phenomenology.  Well, as Hegel writes, the only paradox worth resolving is how Jesus Christ was sold out by his own people and crucified!

But let's think about Spirit as such.  Is it something discernable?  We often say, "You're in good spirits!", to describe someone's mood or emotional underpinnings at a given moment.  What is this peculiar 'spirit'?  What makes it part of our human life?  I think anyone who has been passionate with an endeavor has sensed a kind of spirit, I would suppose - but can wee phenomenologically distill it down and stratify it into basic component parts of emotional life?

Because- to me -all life is emotional.  So 'spirit', if it is anything, seems to have to do with emotions as such.  Being 'spirited' is a description of someone's involvement having to do with how they skillfully grapple with the world as such, in a lively- emotionally -way.

So what is this notion of spirit?  This concept of "Geist", which is distinct in translation for me from "The Brain" or "The Mind", seems to me to be getting at something both ethereal and transcendental, both religious and physicalistic.  Think of common examples of how we use the term "Spirit".

We say,

"Show some school spirit!"

Well this points to something fairly concrete about what it means to have a kind of emotionally involved engagement, in this case, with school Sport.  Or what about the term, "Spiritual".  Does this mean to imply a kind of belief system?  What about the idea of "Spirit"- Singular?  A Ghost of the apparition to phenomenal consciousness, or a Soul from the land of the undead making contact with a living soul here on earth, "Geist".

A 'spirited' debate is generally descriptive of some kind of passionate engagement in dialectical Truths as such, or a search for Truth.  What is a Spirit?  Is it a Soul?  Could it be a kind of Inner Mind-ID that we possess, that constitutes something effervescently superfluous yet defined about one's ineffable distinctively understood "SELF"?

I do not know,

but I would say to all of you out there reading my words,

Ask -

...why is the spirit important?

...what about school spirit is really important?

...how am I spiritually aware of myself?

...If there are spirits such as ghosts, how do my own spirited doubts remain doubtful of apparitions?

Brendan O'Connell

DDU/IDU 1/22/2023