IndieAgora

The Spirit of a man need not have historicity in the sense of being said to belong to a real person who had some bodily existence.

One sort of usage to the word is a reference to a character, a feature or combination of features or ideas which seem or Can be used to refer to something.

For example, the Spirit of Sherlock Holmes, a character considered fictional and unreal can be said to be inhabiting or active in a person who seems to have the qualities that are thought to belong to Sherlock Holmes, such as a certain style or method of reasoning.

The spirit of an animal with certain qualities or features could be said to be in accord with an individual or object which seems to have those qualities as well.

That thing is said to be that thing when it is wholly that, whereas a spirit can be used as a term to reference attributes which exist or are called upon which do not wholly transform a thing necessarily.

In the past, it appears the term spirit was sometimes used in this way as well.

He is like a wolf, he has the spirit of a wolf, in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes or Santa Klaus, the spirit of the place was gloomy.

The spirit of revenge took hold of him, the spirit of justice, the spirit of bigotry, ignorance, zealotry, the holy spirit of divine revelation.

The spirit of Mars fell upon the company, of Odin, of Peace.

An evil spirit came upon Saul as sent by God and he was filled with violent and paranoid thoughts.

The spirit of Lucifer are those things associated with the character, as intended or made reference to by the speaker, they may not agree with others usage of the word in that context or other contexts.

There were often linked themes with people, the bear linked with wrath in some cultures so the spirit of wrath being like a bear and the spirit of a bear being wrathful.

Sherlock Holmes has certain qualities one may admire and wish to take on or call upon for example, or Gellert Grindelwald from Harry Potter.

Someone may appear to be possessed of the spirit of Hitler if they go into a furious or ecstatic speech.

One could even say to be possessed of the Spirit of Nazism if they are in accord with its ideals and act by them.

These are all leading back to the all encompassing and various attributes that people narrow down and organize and make distinctions regarding.

Thus, in this one sense, the world and all that is in it seems quite haunted, since ideas can be seen coming from, similar to, and superimposed upon many things and people in how they appear to us.

Like it. Ghostly hauntings are a main aspect of Derrida.

I'd love to see more about that and quotes. There is a lot of Gothicism and Gothic themes in Academia and Philosophy and these before their Gothic forms may have stemmed from Greco-Roman traditions and tendencies which were in many senses also largely Universally Human, such as this one particular notion of similarity or comparison being a kind of spirit, a spirit in this sense as a kind of organization of ideas or aspects of limited scope or distinction.

Cities would, in the Mesopotamian mould, often be dedicated to a certain spirit or theme as well, such as Athena being the general spirit or theme of Athens and Athenians who may have been thought to thus carry attributes of Athena though they were diverse.

It may have also been believed that by looking at those born in a city and their behaviors one could learn about the activities or results of a certain idea or spirit which they represent.

The Ancient tendency was highlt holistic, but just as the brain becomes increasingly compartmentalized and the Universe stretches apart, people began to increasingly distinguish and lock things into departments and categories. Now a chair is just a chair and doesn't refer to place or seat of or dominion or power or station.

I am of a particularly more holistic view which leads to mystical seeming speech or content which may resemble Ancient modes of connectivity or synaestheticism like synesthesia.

If one admits that writing (and the mark in general) must be able to function in the absence of the sender, the receiver, the context of production, etc., that implies that this power, this being able, this possibility is always inscribed, hence necessarily inscribed as possibility in the functioning or the functional structure of the mark. . . . [T]his possibility is a necessary part of its structure.
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Much of what you mentioned is like how fictional and real life people are like archetypes.

Really excellent thing you wrote there regarding the mark. So long as the Mark exists its presence is its meaning and contains its reference and structural utility which can also be called possibility even though that word can also confuse people into making them think of forms or marks which do not take place and are actually not possible and possibility as a notion becomes a misleading distraction which leads people to believe in forms or marks which do not exist except in the ways that they do, such as imaginary moments.

Every distinguished object as part of our experience has in it its form in our view which is its impact or what reveals its structure or true form. It comes packaged for us with whatever associations that it does for us, a form known or impacting us and changing the shape of our experience.