The Birth of Crit Theory: Dialectic of Spirit

To speak of the Spirit in Hegel is to speak of everything there is, like speaking of being in classical metaphysics. Spirit means, first and foremost, the “absolute” or the “truly infinite” Spirit, the divine Spirit who does not remain merely infinite or transcendent but posits the finite as its own other, maintaining self-identity in that other and reconciling the finite with itself. All reality is an expression of the absolute Spirit. When taken in its abstract structure in isolation from its objectification in nature and history, the absolute Spirit is called the absolute Idea, the fundamental unity of concept and reality operative in all reality. When objectified in unconscious externality, it is called nature. When objectified in the social movements and institutions of self-conscious humanity, it is called history, in which the absolute Spirit is immanent as the “world spirit” and more specifically as “the spirit of the time” or “the spirit of the nation.” When immanent in the self-transcendent and self-universalizing movement of a finite spirit, it is called the human individual. The realms of art, religion, and philosophy are the spheres in which the absolute Spirit contemplates itself in its absolute, universal reality. All reality, then, is either the absolute Spirit itself or its finite others empowered by the absolute Spirit to transcend themselves toward their infinite other in time and space. The absolute Spirit constitutes the ultimate source, substance, and end of all things in their very movements.