The past must be narrated, the present cognized, the future intimated. (Schelling)
Hegelian dialectic cognizes the past.
The past is not a point in time, but an ekstases. A “reaching-out”. The past is no less “present” than the present, it is simply present in a different way (as recollected, as remembered).
The past must be narrated because this is the form of recollection.
The past cannot be cognized for the same reason that eye witnesses are unreliable. It is not some other moment in time which we see only partially, but rather a modification of the current moment in time which is available only to narration.
The limits of recollection are the limits of narrative.
I don’t want to gripe at your choice of words, but Hegelian dialectic does not “cognize” anything. Dialectic disrupts cognition by uprooting the criteria by which our understanding measures truth (see the Encyclopedia Logic ยง79-82). Hegel’s productive imagination of the past is positively supplied by the moment of speculation, not of dialectic.
Also, I would contend that Hegel subscribes to something which analytic circles today would dub “presentism.” True, he did feel that through principles of reason, the logic of historical events could be cognized a priori, but the young Schelling no less than Hegel felt this way. Schelling’s own a priori deductions of the ages of history can be seen in his 1800 System of Transcendental Idealism and his 1802 Philosophy of Art.
Sorry if this seems an attack. My interest here is solely in correctness.