(Ger., spirit, soul) A quality that animates the mind. The Zeitgeist is the spirit of the age (see Romanticism ). Geisteswissenschaften are the human or mental sciences. This term appears in some Hegelian writing, and occurs in the influential translation into German by Schiel of J. S. Mill's Logic, where it corresponds to the moral sciences. It is particularly associated with the later works of Dilthey.
Philosophy dictionary. Academic. 2011.