“Is there a way the world is regardless of how we think about it? If so, can we know the way the world is? Is knowledge a socio-historical phenomenon?” With these questions, Kenneth Westphal begins a study that explicitly aims at connecting Hegel's theory of knowledge to main stream epistemology. The project I am proposing here examines the connection between epistemological and religious issues. It will show how Hegel's strategy for an examination of knowledge changes the fundamental orientation of the epistemological project, transforms the questions we usually associate with it, and demonstrates an inseparable connection between epistemology and religion. Throughout the discussion, Westphal's questions will represent the concerns of contemporary epistemology. The project begins with an account of Hegel's strategy for a critical examination of knowledge.
Hegel defines his relation to epistemology in the Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit. It seems natural to assume, Hegel says, that we must first come to an understanding about cognition — its different forms, their nature and limits — before we use cognition to know what truly is. Hegel describes this assumption as “a certain uneasiness,” “a mistrust,” a “fear of error,” which “seems justified.” If we do not determine precisely what cognition can and cannot know, if we do not identify which form of cognition is appropriate for knowing reality as it truly is, we might accept as true of reality itself what is only cognition's way of knowing it.