Is being thought? : On what Spirit's systematic role can teach us about Hegel's identity of thought and being

The current discussion of Hegel's doctrine of the identity of thought and being focuses on the justification of thought's special status, understood in an epistemological sense: the issue is taken to be that of explaining why thought can be affirmed to have a full grip on a being which, at least for common sense, is for it a „beyond“. In the present paper I argue that, when understood correctly, Hegel's doctrine of the identity of thought and being must be taken to be, first and foremost, an ontological theory and not an epistemological one, so the real fundamental interpretative questions about it is ontological rather than epistemological: precisely, the question is not that of justifying thought's identity with being, but that of explaining why and in which sense being can be said to be thought. I then contend that the answer to this question is provided by the systematic meaning of the philosophy of spirit.