The article analyzes the relationship between absolute knowing and the process of recognition in self-consciousness. The theme is discussed in relation to Hegel's thesis of the scientific character of philosophical knowledge. The article shows how the dialectical relationship between judging consciousness and the consciousness that acts is essential to understand the status of absolute knowing. To support this thesis, the article examines Hegel's discussion on the forms of manifestation of spirit within the chapter “Spirit” and the Hegelian analysis of the (...) relationship between revealed religion and absolute knowing. Selfconsciousness embodies the concept of spirit because it is constituted by the movement of infinity and is therefore a self-differentiating whole. The structure of self-consciousness characterizes the specificity of the Phenomenology of Spirit: the convergence of a form of knowledge and a form of human subjectivity. Another central theme is action, in which the «horizontal» recognition of the selfconsciousnesses gives rise to the «vertical recognition» of spirit.The action itself is the bearer of the unity of essence and Dasein, universality and particularity, substantiality and singular subjectivity. (shrink)