zeitgeist

is a general cultural, intellectual, ethical, philosophical, and political climate within which certain writings and philosophies along with a general ambience, morals, socio-cultural directions, and moods associated with an era take place.

In Hegelian terms philosophy is always linked to time. Hegel has warned us against what he called Zeitgeist. In Hegel's understanding, as expressed in his Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Zeitgeist denotes something like 'the spirit of the time' or 'the spirit of the age'. It is a general cultural, intellectual, ethical, philosophical, and political climate within which certain writings and philosophies along with a general ambience, morals, socio-cultural directions, and moods associated with an era take place.

is a mode into which a historian must enter in order to 'feel himself into everything'. It involves the recognition that each event must be evaluated in its own right, since it carries its validity within itself and no event, therefore, should merely be seen as a path to ends beyond itself.

Each event, Herder insisted, must be evaluated in its own right, since it carries its validity within itself and no event, therefore, should merely be seen as a path to ends beyond itself. The historian, to recognize this fact, has to relive the past, reconstruct and rethink it, in order to recapture the spirit, the thoughts, and feelings of the age in question.6 And, to be able to succeed in entering into this Zeitgeist a term Herder invented the historian needs to develop an insight into human motivation, into what makes people tick. Herder therefore closely linked avances in historical methods with advances in psychology. The extent to which psychology became capable of attending to each minute detail under investigation would, he believed, materially augment the scope of historical understanding and, with it, the ability of the historian 'to feel himself. into everything.,,

is awareness of one's time but reflects critically on it in order not be asphyxiated by the spirit of that particular time and historical period.

For Hegel Zeitgeist means that one is aware of one's time but reflects critically on it in order not be asphyxiated by the spirit of that particular time and historical period.

is that to which we are, irrespective of our conscious convictions, attached to, colored by, and even undermined by, for we are each but a particle of the general mass. 

No one can flatter himself that he is immune to the spirit of his own epoch, or even that he possesses a full understanding of it. Irrespective of our conscious convictions, each one of us, without exception, being a particle of the general mass, is somewhere attached to, colored by, or even undermined by the spirit which goes through the mass. Freedom stretches only as far as the limits of our consciousness. Carl Jung

is the temporal axis of national-character. It originally meant the sum total of the spirit of generations through the ages and came to mean the principle of a certain historical period as it conceives of itself.

Geist der Zeiten meant originally the sum total of the spirit of generations through the ages. Gradually the meaning of this expression was contracted so as to describe the principle of a certain historical period as it conceives of itself (Karl Löwith).' (NET dict. history of ideas)

is tinted and changed by every man who speaks out loud and clear.

Every man who speaks out loud and clear is tinting the Zeitgeist. Every man who expresses what he honestly thinks is true is changing the Spirit of the Times. Thinkers help other people to think, for they formulate what others are thinking. No person writes or thinks alone--thought is in the air, but its expression is necessary to create a tangible Spirit of the Times.

is the spirit of the times which haunts even the atheists.

The spirit of the times can haunt even the atheists.

is best revealed by its artists of the second rank.

An age is best revealed by its artists of the second rank.

zeitgeist, n.All

zeitgeist