The focus of the author is the problem of the genesis of knowledge, the analysis of the principles of obtaining new knowledge. The antinomy of empiricism and rationalism is taken as the starting point for considering the problem. The concepts of "form" and "content" of thinking act as the most general categories of research. The work explores the possibilities of identifying the mechanism of the genesis of knowledge, which opens up thanks to the allocation of special education, the "form-content" connection, which first appears in Hegel's philosophy. A critical analysis of the development of the issue is given, which, based on the statement of the identity of being and thinking, is proposed by Hegel.