ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explores the "radical view", presenting data derived from the central psychoanalytic assumption of a meaningful unconscious—data from psychoanalysis and from close cognate areas, including subliminal research and cognitive neuropsychology—all in support of philosophical arguments for the position. Theoretically, the event was instructive regarding the limits of psychoanalytic explanation. As for mis-typing one sort of mental state for another, the everyday occurrence stands out even more clearly when working with psychoanalytic patients. The author provides psychoanalytic data and theory in support of a radical view in epistemology and philosophy—that knowledge is the fundamental epistemic mental state. The agent tries hard to bring the answer to consciousness but experiences difficulty in retrieving the unconsciously known content. Patients with negative hallucinations clearly have unconscious contentful knowledge without any prior or concurrent beliefs about what they know. Knowledge providing evidence for belief, and not vice versa, amounts to a claim for knowing as an epistemologically prior state.
