I highly suggest everyone reads Phenomenology Of Spirit.

Section 1
For Hegel, knowledge is a matter of one’s conceptual framework, which is the way that one interpret their raw experiential data. There are many ways for a conceptual framework to take place and in turn many different ways for people to experience the world, but eventually a conceptual framework will reach a point of perplexity, and will collapse on itself. At this point it seems that a person can choose to either stay puzzled or make a rule that does not allow them to think about the contradictions in their conceptual framework, but these two options will not be satisfying. There is a third option that Hegel suggests is the most satisfying, and this is to invent a solution and therefore expand one’s conceptual framework to a new one that includes the original one that has collapsed. Once this new conceptual framework reaches it’s own point of perplexity, it can too be expanded with a solution and included into a larger framework that is always emerging from a prior imperfect one, until absolute knowledge can be reached. For Hegel, the ending point of this cycle is the same for everyone despite the point where they began.
What is different about Hegel’s way of knowing from that of Descartes and Kant is that Hegel’s idealism claims that reality is completely dependent of one’s own mind and consciousness. This means that there is no real thing outside of the mind because Hegel does not permit that anything can even truly exist outside of one’s own mind so the “inside” and “outside” terminology must be dismissed. What the “real” world is, is not a world somewhere outside of the mind waiting to be found, but the world we create through our own perception and conceptual schemes. In Hegel’s view, the Cartesian idea of knowledge being somewhere beyond the illusion of of reality inside one’s own consciousness is a conceptual framework where one’s system of justification does not allow them to truly know anything. For Kant knowledge is limited by the concepts of things appearing “for us” through sense data and us converting this data into experience as different from how they actually are. This can lead to skepticism as it makes knowledge outside of the mind impossible to know as knowledge can only exist inside the mind. These can be considered unsatisfying ways of experiencing the world because there is always the possibility that one is wrong about what they think they know. If one claims that real objects are something we cannot directly access, then this is still and idea they are conscious of, and therefore it is just an articulation of an unsatisfying framework.
Hegel’s system allows us to interpret reality in a way that will not conflict with anything. For Hegel it is not a matter of whether or not you know something, but a matter of figuring out how you know it. Standards of justification can be held fixed to examine beliefs and beliefs can be held fixed to examine standards of justification. A conceptual framework will make claims about how things are but collapse when they examine themselves, it must be expanded and collapsed until eventually the observer and the observed collapse into each other and absolute knowledge is attained. Hegel rejects the notion that consciousness is a bubble we are trapped inside as well as the notion that knowledge is individual. Instead knowledge is a way of being human together, it is social understanding. Theories are made by taking something as an object, perceiving it by giving it properties, and understanding it by theorizing about the relation of an object and properties giving rise to universals and the idea of properties being relational and force can carry out it’s potential. The theories need not be judged as mirrors of structure or as truth, but in terms of their use in one’s conceptual framework. Each object becomes what one makes it as the phenomenon of consciousness plays out, and so knowledge is a matter of pragmatic and social means.

Section 2
Hegel explains consciousness through a subject-object relation, meaning that what is required for a mind and consciousness to be present is a subject that is perceiving an object that is not itself. Self-consciousness occurs when this relation loops back onto itself and the subject becomes the object it is perceiving. What self-consciousness is trying to do by it’s definition is perceive itself, and represent itself. It tries to be subject and object at the same time, giving it the impossible task of trying to see itself be recognized by itself without relating itself to any other objects. This is the main desire of self-consciousness, to eliminate it’s desire to see it be recognized by gaining and perceiving recognition from what it sees as the same thing as itself, meaning other self-conscious beings.
By being in it’s own self defined loop, self-consciousness aims to be recognized, and it does so to an extent that it cannot fully achieve. Because each consciousness that is aware of itself desires the recognition of other self-conscious beings, the initial phase of inter-subjectivity results in unavoidable conflict. This is because each self-conscious being is in a state that is defined by it’s own desire for recognition. It will continue to strive for this recognition at any cost, including death. This results in conflicts that cause death, due to self-consciousness and it’s willingness to risk death in order to gain prestige.
As long as self-consciousness remains in this loop of desire for recognition it initially seems that it cannot truly be free, but in it’s willingness to die it gains in a sense a different type of freedom. This is because it refuses and cannot exist in any way other than the way it desires, which is in recognition and prestige of other conscious beings. This means that it will have other self-conscious beings recognize it or it will die trying to force this. For a self-consciousness that is not willing to die, it means that it values something more than the desire for recognition and is willing to recognize the self-consciousness that is willing to die and kill in order to gain recognition and prestige. From the conflict of inter-subjectivity there seems to arise a relationship between self-conscious beings where the one willing to die is in power over the subjects that agree to recognize it. It can also be looked at in a way where the self-consciousness that is being recognized by the other is not truly in power as it cannot live without this recognition and will refuse to live without this recognition. The self-consciousness that is doing the recognizing on the other hand has the ability to live without their own recognition from others and in this sense they have power over the self-consciousness with prestige. The one in power is dependent on the others, but the others on not dependent on it.
Being in a position of recognizing the other without relieving any recognition still cannot fully satisfy the conflict of desire in self-consciousness. What is eventually needed is a community between self-conscious beings where recognition can be traded, given and received, in order to avoid a relationship of war between them. With a community there can arise symbolism and meaning for the self-consciousness in the form of religion and philosophy.

Section 3
According to Kant’s moral epistemology, it is possible for the individual alone to determine moral behavior. Individual rationality must be exercised in this process, and is what makes knowing moral behavior possible. However it is not as simple as rational self-seeking behavior, as this is arbitrary fulfillment and should not be considered morality. Satisfaction of one’s own preferences should be dismissed, as one’s preferences need not be more important than another’s. This is because all preferences are the same in value when thought of in the sense that they are someone’s. It is irrational to treat two of the same thing as though they are not the same, and this should be dismissed as attachment to something that is arbitrary. According to Kant, one can instead find moral behavior through a process of universilization. When faced with a moral decision, one must make a choice, and to choose well one must turn the choice into a maxim. Once the individual turns their decision into a policy, they should then imagine every other person adopting this policy. In this imagined world the individual must then decide if the policy still seems okay to them, or if their goals could still be reached were everyone to adopt the same behavior as them. This is generating universal norms out of the individual’s desires, and it will prove that it is not practical to adopt a policy that one believes no one else should adopt. In this way of thinking, any individual rational agent will have the ability to determine and know morality. However there are other things that remain unknowable by rational means alone for Kant, such as God.
Hegel viewed Kant’s form of individual rational ethics as the most advanced stage of ethics one can reach when they think of morality on the individual level. However, Hegel had objections to Kant’s moral epistemology that shows the imperfection in the way Kant proposed one can determine moral behavior. The main objection is that universilization alone will not get the individual the moral content that they want, it is not a satisfying way of being moral. When an individual practices this form of universilization, there are still prior moral commitments within the individual that will have an effect on the way they view their imagined world where everyone adopts their policy. There are wicked intentions that can still be universalized with an outcome that can seem positive to the individual, given that they had prior moral commitments to these wicked intentions in the first place. In the same way, the Kant’s moral epistemology can be applied in a way to make otherwise fine seeming behavior seem wicked, given that the individual had a prior commitment against a behavior that is approved by the norms of the community. This mode of thinking is unsatisfying as the individual creates and judges their universalized criterion based on the individuals desires alone, rather than focusing on the norms that exist for the community.
For Hegel, Kant’s moral epistemology cannot be the basis for moral norms. What makes moral norms is not a thought experiment, but rather the actual norms that exist in and for the community. An individual cannot determine norms or morality alone, and this is because for Hegel norms and morality can not exist on an individual level without a community. Morality exists in and for the community, and so the real source for determining moral behavior rests within the norms of the community, not within the rationality of one person. If someone wants to know right or wrong, they need only see how the community around them conceptualizes these ideas, and then morality will become knowable. This is because a the concepts of right and wrong are defined socially, and so any type of social concept can be known by a single individual so long as they are in a community, including the concept of God. Hegel differs from Kant in the sense that he does not believe God is something that cannot be rationally understood. Knowledge comes from the social community in Hegel’s way of thinking, so in the community there lies knowledge of God as well. This way of understanding these concepts is considered more satisfying by Hegel, as many perplexing concepts can be properly understood. Hegel’s mode of thinking rests on knowledge through social means, which can seem more satisfying compared to Kant’s way of individual rationality which only allows morality to be understood, leaving God as something ineffable.

Section 4
Hegel proposed the idea that Christianity is the most accurate religion in conveying philosophical truths, but that it must first be properly understood to see how. Christianity can be criticized in the sense that it seems to be the result of unhappiness. Many of the religions that involve a focus on some form of an “other worldly” realm where things are not as unsatisfying as the world in which we live are faith based religions. Faith in this way is produced as a response to a unsatisfactory social existence, and the truth of it is not in any sort of actual existence of another realm where a more satisfying experience is possible and waiting, this idea should be dismissed as illusionary. The truth of this type of faith rests in it’s expression of how things ought to be, which is being part of a community that one desires to be a part of. When one desires to be a part of the community they are in, it enables them to experience a satisfying social existence, which is what other worldly faith is longing for as the creation of this type of faith is a result of dissatisfaction with one’s social world. By expressing the unsatisfied needs of humanity, it articulates in it’s fantasies what a satisfied person looks like. This can be seen as positive in that faith has an understanding of the human condition, but living in this way is by no means a satisfying way of being, which is an imperfection of Christianity as a whole.
Although Christianity can be criticized in it’s other worldly thinking, for Hegel there are still philosophical truths that are communicated through this religion accurately by the means of metaphorical representation. The truth in Christianity will not be found if one is take each message and text within the religion as a whole in a completely literal way. This is a fundamental mistake in attempting the understand the message of this religion. If a story is written in order to convey a message, and the literal text of the story is made up of false information, it will not make the message of the story any less poignant. In the same way one can accept a fictional novel as being full of falsehoods and lies, but the message of the novel can have just as powerful of an effect on the reader despite whether or not the events described have actually happened. For Christianity to be understood properly, one must dismiss debate of whether or not the historical and factual claims made literally within the text are true or false, as this debate is useless and does not help in uncovering the actual message in the religion as a whole.
With this understanding one can see that Christianity articulates truth in metaphorical and in a non-conceptual form. This truth lies in the connection that Christianity makes between God and humans through the character of Jesus. Whether or not a historical Jesus actually existed is not what is important, what matters most for Hegel is that Christianity makes the jump from an “other worldly” God and puts it in the human form, showing that humanity and God have a direct connection. The philosophical truth in this is that God, in a conceptualized form, is dependent of humanity and can be seen as the product of humanity as a whole. What Christianity does is it takes the truth in metaphysics, nature, and culture ad expresses them through metaphorical characters of God, Jesus, and a Holy Spirit. The danger is this way of expressing philosophical truths is that if the metaphors are taken in too serious of a way, one will no longer experience these truths in a non-literal way and will instead cease to experience these truths altogether. The character of Jesus is important as it shows that God can be seen as fundamentally human, but if this metaphor is taken in too literal of way then the focus turns more to the metaphor itself rather than the truth that it is expressing. This truth is that each human is as much a part of God as another and therefore each person has a place in this world, so they need not desire a different realm where they believe their place is. In this way Christianity is the best religion when it comes to metaphorically representing conceptual truths in philosophy, however there is danger in believing that there is only a single incarnation of God, because for Hegel each person alive is as much of an incarnation of God as the next. Humanity can be considered God and there is only God insofar as there is humanity.