Abstract

The title of the film Avatar specifically refers to the extension of the consciousness or spirit of a human individual into the body of an artificially created human–Na'vi hybrid. In his Philosophy of Nature, Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel argues that Nature is the embodiment – or, as we might say, the “avatar” – of what he calls the Absolute Spirit or God. Scientists, with their mechanistic models of nature, are essentially in league with the practical exploitation of the Earth. Their arid abstractions abet the arrogant approach of commercial interests, whose dismissive attitude toward nature is captured well in Selfridge's remark: “They're just goddamn trees.” When Jake passes through “the eye of Eywa” at the conclusion of Avatar, leaving his former body and his former life behind and becoming fully embodied as part of “the people,” he implicitly recognizes the truth of Hegel's definition of Spirit.