what is the meaning of this currently much used phrase zeit geist (sorry if spelling is incorrect) only heard?

Answer 1

It is not just "currently" much used. I have heard this frequently throughout my life, and I am 60. Zeitgeist is the experience of a dominant cultural climate that defines, particularly in Hegelian thinking, an era in the dialectical progression of a people or the world at large.

Zeitgeist is originally a German expression that means "the spirit of the age", literally translated as "time (Zeit) spirit (Geist)". It describes the intellectual and cultural climate of an era. In German, the word has more layers of meaning than the English translation, including the fact that Zeitgeist can only be observed for past events.

Zeitgeist has achieved a unique status among German loanwords in other tongues, having found an entrance into English, Spanish and Japanese.

Answer 2

Zeit - time, Geist - Ghost. The Ghosts of Time. Records or evidence of a bygone age.

Answer 3

Zeitgeist (pronounced [ˈtsa͡ɪtga͡ɪst] (help·info)) is originally a German expression that means "the spirit of the age", literally translated as "time (Zeit) spirit (Geist)". It describes the intellectual and cultural climate of an era. In German, the word has more layers of meaning than the English translation, including the fact that Zeitgeist can only be observed for past events.

Zeitgeist has achieved a unique status among German loanwords in other tongues, having found an entrance into English, Spanish and Japanese.


Origins
The concept of Zeitgeist goes back to Johann Gottfried Herder and other German Romantics such as Cornelius Jagdmann, but is best known in relation to Hegel's philosophy of history. In 1769 Herder wrote a critique of the work Genius seculi by the philologist Christian Adolph Klotz and introduced the word Zeitgeist into German as a translation of genius seculi (Latin: genius - "guardian spirit" and saeculi - "of the century").

The German Romantics, habitually tempted to reduce the past to essences, treated the Zeitgeist as an historical character in its own right, rather than a generalized description for an era.



Definitions
"Zeitgeist" refers to the ethos of a select group of people, that express a particular (predominantly post-modern) world view, which is prevalent at a particular period of socio-cultural progression.

Zeitgeist is the experience of a dominant cultural climate that defines, particularly in Hegelian thinking, an era in the dialectical progression of a people or the world at large. Hegel's main contribution to the formulation of the concept of Volksgeist is the attribution of a historical character to the concept. The spirit of a nation is one of the manifestations of "World Spirit" (Weltgeist).

That Spirit is essentially alive and active throughout mankind's history. Now, the spirit of a nation is an intermediate stage of world history as the history of the World Spirit. The World Spirit gives impetus to the realization of the historical spirits of various nations (Volksgeister').

The spirits of individual nations are both the articulations (Gliederungen) of an organization and its realization. The spirits of individual nations represent a segment of the World Spirit out of which emerges the unlimited universal spirit.

A comparison is introduced here between the status of an individual and that of a nation's spirit. In the process of his formation the individual undergoes various changes without, however, losing his identity. As a part of world history, a nation—exhibiting a certain trend expressed in its Volksgeist— plays its part in the total process of world history. But once it contributes its share to world history it can no longer play a role in the process of world history.

The submersion in the total process prevents a people's cultural rebirth, because it has exhausted its creativity in the historical growth of its guiding spirit. It is for this reason that one of Hegel's disciples, Michelet, considered the idea of a renaissance of the Jewish people as philosophically impossible.

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

Your spelling is correct, the term is sometimes written as one word. The term means literally "time ghost", usually translated as "spirit of the times" in the sense of "times" when one says that something or other is a "sign of the times".

Answer 5

Your spelling is correct, except that the term is all one word. It's German for "spirit of the time."

Answer 6

It's a German word that means "of the time".

Answer 7

Its German for "feeling of time".