(no subject)

[unlike]

thought, for hegel, recognizes things themselves. there is no thing "in itself," lying unknowably beyond thought, not even god. on the contrary, as we read in our text, we not only have the possibility, we have the duty of knowing him. for if the laws of logic and those of reality belong together as two aspects of the same process, then logic is at the same time a doctrine of reality, or ontology. and the principles of logic, or categories, are at the same time those of reality. the logical categories are the laws of the world, and the laws of the world are the logical categories. arrived at this point, hegel needed to take but one step to regard reality itself as the thought of a thinker, and the whole system of the world as a theology. the divine thinker thinks the world; his thought is at the same time the world and the process of his thinking the world process. the laws of logic as those of the divine mind are Reason. since they are at the same time those of the world, all that is real is rational and all that is rational is real. also, since the divine thought progresses according to its own laws, which are the laws of the world, all that is must be and all is as it ought to be.

-- robert s hartman, introduction to reason in history by georg wilhelm friedrich hegel.