Product Code Database
In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a Zeitgeist (; ; capitalized in German) is an invisible agent, force, or Daimon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history.Theo Jung: " Zeitgeist im langen 18. Jahrhundert. Dimension Begriffs", in: Achim Landwehr (ed.): Frühe Neue Zeiten. Zeitwissen zwischen Reformation und Revolution, Bielefeld 2012, 319-355; idem: "The Politics of Time: Zeitgeist in Early Nineteenth-Century Political Discourse", in: Contributions to the History of Concepts 9, Nr. 1 (2014), 24-49. The term is usually associated with Georg W. F. Hegel, contrasting with Hegel's use of Volksgeist "national spirit" and Weltgeist "world-spirit".
Its coinage and popularization precede Hegel, and are mostly due to Herder and Goethe. Zeitgeist "spirit of the epoch" and Nationalgeist "spirit of a nation" in L. Meister, Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschenrechte (1789). der frivole Welt- und Zeitgeist ("the frivolous spirit of the world and the time") in Lavater, Handbibliothek für Freunde 5 (1791), p. 57. Zeitgeist is popularized by Herder and Goethe. Zeitgeist in Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch. Other philosophers who were associated with such concepts include Herbert Spencer and Voltaire.
Contemporary use of the term sometimes, more colloquially, is similar to the Overton Window in referring to a schema of fashions or fad that prescribe what is considered to be acceptable or tasteful for an era: e.g., in fields like architecture, psychotherapy, or journalism.
The Hegelian concept is in contrast to the Great Man theory propounded by Thomas Carlyle, which sees history as the result of the actions of heroes and geniuses. In contrast, Hegel perceived such "great men", specifically Napoleon, as the "embodiment of the world-spirit" ( Die Weltseele zu Pferde "the Anima mundi on horseback"Hegel, letter of 13 October 1806 to F. I. Niethammer, no. 74 (p. 119) in Briefe von und an Hegel ed. Hoffmeister, vol. 1 (1970). See also H. Schnädelbach in Wolfgang Welsch, Klaus Vieweg (eds.), Das Interesse des Denkens: Hegel aus heutiger Sicht, Wilhelm Fink Verlag (2003), p. 223, T. Pinkard, Hegel: A Biography, (2000), p. 228.).Forsyth, D. R. (2009). Group dynamics: New York: Wadsworth. Chapter Carlyle stresses that leaders do not become leaders by fate or accident. Instead, these individuals possess characteristics of great leaders and these characteristics allow them to obtain positions of power.
According to Hegel biographer D. R. Forsyth, Leo Tolstoy disagreed with Carlyle's perspective, instead believing that leadership, like other things, was a product of the "zeitgeist", the social circumstances at the time.
Great Man theory and zeitgeist theory may be included in two main areas of thought in psychology. For instance, Great Man theory is very similar to the Trait theory. Trait researchers are interested in identifying the various personality traits that underline human behaviors such as conformity, leadership, or other social behaviors. Thus, they agree that leadership is primarily a quality of an individual and that some people are pre-dispositioned to be a leader whereas others are born to follow these leaders. In contrast, situationist researchers believe that social behavior is a product of society. That is, social influence is what determines human behaviors. Therefore, situationism is of the same opinion as zeitgeist theory—leaders are created from the social environment and are molded from the situation. The concept of zeitgeist also relates to the sociological tradition that stems from Émile Durkheim and recently developed into social capital theory as exemplified by the work of Patrick Hunout.
These two perspectives have been combined to create what is known as the interactional approach to leadership. This approach asserts that leadership is developed through the mixing of personality traits and the situation. Further, this approach was expressed by social psychologist Kurt Lewin by the equation B = f(P, E) where behavior (B) is a function (f) of the person (P) and the environment (E).
In a zeitgeist market, the number of new entrants is high, differentiation in high-value products (the strongest predictor of new product success) is more difficult to achieve, and emphasizing service and solution over product and process, will enhance success. Examples include innovation in product experience, legal rights and bundling, privacy rights, and agency (where businesses act on behalf of customers).
|
|
