N on Nostr: Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when it so exists for another; that is, ...

Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged.… The detailed exposition of the Notion of this spiritual unity in its duplication will present us with the process of Recognition. [PG 178]

A self-consciousness exists for a self-consciousness. Only so is it in fact self-consciousness; for only in this way does the unity of itself in its otherness become explicit for it.… A self-consciousness, in being an object, is just as much “I” as “object.” With this, we already have before us the Notion of Spirit. What still lies ahead for consciousness is the experience of what Spirit is—this absolute substance which is the unity of the different independent self-consciousnesses which, in their opposition, enjoy perfect freedom and independence: “I” that is “We” and “We” that is “I.” [PG 177]

But according to the Notion of recognition this [that a self-consciousness’s certainty of itself have truth] is possible only when each is for the other what the other is for it, only when each in its own self through its own action, and again through the action of the other, achieves this pure abstraction of being-for-self. [PG 186]