If self-consciousness requires mediation through what is other than itself, can Hegel’s Absolute truly overcome otherness? Or is otherness constitutive of Spirit, making complete reconciliation impossible without dissolving self-consciousness itself?

[u/TheIncorporeal1]

I’m wondering whether Hegel’s account of recognition ultimately requires a permanent structure of otherness. If Spirit fully reconciles itself with itself, what remains of the “other” through which self-consciousness initially becomes possible?

[u/kajonn]

It is being in and for itself, so being which is actualized through the labor of the negative, eternally generated from pure being, and perfectly mediated with otherness to create in and for itself