© 2005. Idealistic Studies, Volume 35, Issues 2–3. ISSN 0046-8541. pp. 119–136 CONSCIENCE, RECOGNITION, AND THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF DIFFERENCE IN HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF SPIRIT Nathan Andersen Abstract: Hegel’s conception of Spirit does not subordinate difference to same- ness, in a way that would make it unusable for a genuinely intersubjective idealism directed to a comprehensive account of the contemporary world. A close analysis of the logic of recognition and the dialectic of conscience in the Phenomenology of Spirit demonstrates that the unity of Spirit emerges in and through conflict, and is forged in the process whereby particular encounters between differently situated individuals reveal and establish the emerging character and significance of the stances they uniquely occupy. It is a familiar problem in recent philosophy 1 that to the extent my experience of another person can be assimilated to ready-made experiential categories, I have not really gotten beyond myself. Rather, in the experience of the apparent other, I have merely reconfirmed or reconnected with a prior sense of self-identity. If Hegel’s conception of Spirit, whose substance and existence is described in the Phenomenology of Spirit as “pure self-recogni- tion in absolute otherness” (reine Selbsterkennen im absoluten Anderssein), 2 is no more than the identity achieved when the self discovers that what appeared to be other is really just an integral moment in an expanded conception of itself, then it would appear that “absolute otherness” in no way refers to a genuine other. Even if such an experience were to reveal that my individual sense of self, along with my familiar categories, is grounded in a more primordial identification with others in a shared world, that would only serve to expand my self-awareness. It may be that I then come to identify with a “universal” self as opposed to the merely “individual” self that finds itself opposed to and related to others in the world, but what would remain unchallenged in this experience is the priority of self and of self- identity over disruption and alterity. An expanded sense of the subject, in other words, does not amount to a rigorous account of a diversely constituted, intersubjective world. This essay will aim to demonstrate that Hegel’s conception of Spirit does not leave unchallenged the priority of self-identity over difference, and does not on that account fail to do justice to the claims of intersubjectivity. At the same time, it is a conception that recognizes genuine differences to form a point of contact, whereby is constituted an emerging unity that gives significance to difference at the same time as it is shaped by these differences. I will argue that what Hegel means by Spirit, particularly in the Phe- nomenology, is best conceived in relation to the phenomenon of conscientious conflict