A Study On Hegel’s Thoughts Of The National Spirit

The idea of "national spirit" is an important element in Hegel’s early period and in the period of the system of Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences.In the early period,Hegel first considered the connotation of national spirit from the perspective of national religion,then turned his attention to the ethical life of the nation-state,and finally,on the basis of critically absorbing the thoughts of other philosophers of the same time,he constructed the theory of national spirit in the progressive development of ethical nature,ethical organism,and ethical spirit.In the period of the system of Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences,the national spirit was no longer limited to the definition of ethics,but was included in the third part of the system,philosophy of spirit,as a stage for the realization and understanding of ideas itself.Its specific content appears in the "anthropology" part of the "Subjective Spirit" chapter and the "ethics" part of the "Objective spirit" chapter.The "Anthropology" section explores the natural form of national spirit,while the "Ethics" section explores the organic and world-historical forms of national spirit.The latter two forms are fully presented in the "Elements of the Philosophy of Right" and "Philosophy of History",which are specific contents of the "objective spirit" :The Elements of the Philosophy of Right focuses on the ethical form of the individual national spirit as it develops from the family through the intermediary of civil society to the organism of the state,while the Philosophy of History aims to describe the realistic process in which the national spirit of each era undertakes the tasks of world historical development in turn,ultimately achieving absolute freedom as the ultimate goal of humanity.Under the background of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences system,ontology,epistemology and logic are intrinsically unified,and ontology,as the process of self-movement and self-knowledge of ideas,is concretely presented and realistically set through conceptual dialectics,so conceptual dialectics is the core method that runs through the development process of national spirit.This method is characterized by a two-way movement,"bottom-up" and "top-down".From the "bottom-up" perspective,individual members of a single nation continuously sublate the naturalness of the national territory and ethical customs,and through their real-life activities in civil society and the State,they gradually realize that they are a part of the national organism,and thus generally cultivate a national spirit for the purpose of the State.From the "top-down" perspective,the national spirit of individual nations is integrated into the development of the idea itself.As different historical periods and stages in the development of the idea itself,each nation undertakes the task of free spirit liberation in its own time.These nations are the representatives of the world spirit of different times,they have no horizontal contrast between high and low,only vertical negative inheritance and free continuation.In the end,the free process of the world spirit,through the performance of the national spirits of different ages,is presented as a free spirit liberation movement with the whole human race as the main body.In addition,in the process of the two-way movement of "bottom-up" and "top-down",Hegel’s idea of national spirit presents a series of indoctrination contents worthy of study and reflection,such as in the context of "bottom-up" individual national spirit,it contains indoctrination ideas about family members,social workers,representatives of associations,ruling officials,parliamentary representatives and the whole population;in the context of "top-down" humanity as a whole,the different national spirits show the physical,individual and subjective indoctrination of human beings through their own performance activities in each era.Hegel’s indoctrination ideas has important theoretical value and practical significance for building the national community consciousness and constructing the human community consciousness.