The term itself, “shape of spirit,” occurs rarely in Hegel's pre-Phenomenology writings, where he instead preferred to speak of a “form of life.” It was in fact in the development of his ideas in Jena that the phrase “shapes of spirit” came to replace “forms of life,” even if the latter phrase never fully disappeared from his writings. The dominant distinction in the Phenomenology, though, is that between “shapes of consciousness” and “shapes of spirit.”

In one sense a “shape of consciousness” is relatively easy to characterize. It involves the way in which an individual is conscious of the natural world around him, how he represents that world to himself, how he represents himself to himself and to others and how he represents others to himself.