The Theory of Non-Knowledge as an Epistemological Foundation of the Unconscious

This paper proposes an epistemological interpretation of the psychological unconscious based on the Theory of Non-Knowledge (TNK). It argues that the unconscious, as developed in Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian analytical psychology, should not be understood merely as a clinical or empirical phenomenon, but as the psychological manifestation of a deeper epistemic condition: the impossibility of ultimate justification. Drawing on Agrippa’s Trilemma, the paper maintains that all cognitive and practical actions occur without final epistemic grounding. TNK formalizes this condition through the concept of nullification, which suspends justificatory demands while preserving operability. From this perspective, unconscious processes are not anomalies within rational agency but necessary consequences of the structural limits of knowledge. The unconscious thus appears as the psychological counterpart of non-knowledge: human beings act, decide, and interpret prior to and independently of ultimate justification. TNK therefore provides a unifying philosophical framework capable of grounding psychoanalytic insights within a general epistemological theory.