The criticism of conceiving logic as preparatoryIntroduction: Does logic presuppose an ontology? What is the relationship between logic and ontology? In contemporary philosophy the common answers have been "No" to the first question and "No one" to the second question. This is because the principles of logic, to borrow Kantian terminology, are understood as regulative rather than constitutive of objects. That a principle is regulative means that it provides us with a methodology that somehow belongs to the nature of our thinking, but not to that of the world, as constitutive principles do.[i] In this way, a regulative conception of logic represents logic as an "instrument" of reason that takes for granted a formal set of rules, rules that have no relevance to "reality" and that are "invented" as tools to guide our thinking.[ii] It is not a curiosity that as As a result, most contemporary logic textbooks present logic as a formal or informal system of rules intended to regulate our thinking. But why should we assume that logic is a regulative “tool” with no ontological status? The aim here is to show that this assumption about the nature of logic has very weak foundations and that a more plausible conception is the constitutive one, where logic is seen to express the structure of the world as mathematics might. This will be supported by first articulating Kant's arguments for the separation between logic and ontology based on his criticism of pure reason and logic as providing constitutive principles of objects. A Hegelian critique of this critique will then be provided, as a defense of pure reason, to subsequently present his conception of reason and logic as a source of constitutive principles. We will attempt to do this by showing (a) Hegel's conception of logic, (b) thought, and (c) objective thought. Finally, this position will be challenged with the accusation of psychologism to show that nevertheless an ontological vision of logic is more plausible than a regulative one.I. Kant: finite experience and critique of pure reason1.1. The regulative logical use of ReasonKant's first Critique is an impressive analysis of the theoretical mind, an attempt to discover its nature, capacity for knowledge and limits.