There is therefore no occasion to ask ourselves why the thinking subject or consciousness perceives itself as a man, or an incarnate or historical subject, nor must we treat this apperception as a second order operation which it somehow performs starting from its absolute existence: the absolute ﬂow takes shape beneath its own gaze as 'a consciousness', or a man, or an incarnate subject, because it is a field of presence to itself, to others and to the world and because this presence throws it into the natural and cultural world from which it arrives at an understanding of itself.