IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2604.15264.html

Knowing that you do not know everything

Author

Listed:
  • Alex A. T. Rathke

Abstract

We show that a rational agent with true and refinable knowledge of events cannot know if she knows everything or not. This epistemic limitation is not resolved by introspection about tautologies or by learning about new events.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex A. T. Rathke, 2026. "Knowing that you do not know everything," Papers 2604.15264, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2604.15264
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.15264
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Spyros Galanis, 2013. "Unawareness of theorems," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(1), pages 41-73, January.
    2. Yoshihiko Tada, 2024. "AU Introspection and Symmetry under non-trivial unawareness," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 97(2), pages 409-421, September.
    3. Fukuda, Satoshi, 2019. "Epistemic foundations for set-algebraic representations of knowledge," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 73-82.
    4. Ronald Fagin & Joseph Y. Halpern & Yoram Moses & Moshe Y. Vardi, 2003. "Reasoning About Knowledge," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262562006, December.
    5. Heifetz, Aviad & Meier, Martin & Schipper, Burkhard C., 2006. "Interactive unawareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 78-94, September.
    6. Burkhard Schipper, 2014. "Unawareness - A Gentle Introduction to both the Literature and the Special Issue," Working Papers 145, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    7. Samet, Dov, 1990. "Ignoring ignorance and agreeing to disagree," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 190-207, October.
    8. Li, Jing, 2009. "Information structures with unawareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 977-993, May.
    9. Burkhard Schipper, 2014. "Unawareness - A Gentle Introduction to both the Literature and the Special Issue," Working Papers 153, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Áron Tóbiás, 2023. "Cognitive limits and preferences for information," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 46(1), pages 221-253, June.
    2. Alex A. T. Rathke, 2024. "Revisiting the state-space model of unawareness," Papers 2409.09818, arXiv.org.
    3. Rathke, Alex A.T., 2025. "Revisiting the state-space model of unawareness," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    4. Fukuda, Satoshi, 2024. "On the axiomatization of an unawareness structure from knowing-whether operators," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    5. Fukuda, Satoshi, 2021. "Unawareness without AU Introspection," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    6. Alex A. T. Rathke, 2023. "On the state-space model of unawareness," Papers 2304.04626, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    7. Antoine Dubus, 2020. "Asymmetric awareness and heterogeneous agents," Rationality and Society, , vol. 32(4), pages 461-484, November.
    8. Grant Simon & Guerdjikova Ani & Quiggin John, 2021. "Ambiguity and Awareness: A Coherent Multiple Priors Model," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 571-612, June.
    9. Spyros Galanis, 2011. "Syntactic foundations for unawareness of theorems," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(4), pages 593-614, October.
    10. Fiorini, Luciana C. & Rodrigues-Neto, José A., 2017. "Self-consistency, consistency and cycles in non-partitional knowledge models," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 11-21.
    11. Schipper, Burkhard C, 2011. "Preference-Based Unawareness," MPRA Paper 30221, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Perea, Andrés, 2022. "Common belief in rationality in games with unawareness," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 11-30.
    13. Holliday, Wesley H., 2025. "A partial-state space model of unawareness," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    14. Schipper, Burkhard C., 2021. "Discovery and equilibrium in games with unawareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    15. Burkhard Schipper, 2010. "Revealed Unawareness," Working Papers 303, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    16. Dominiak, Adam & Tserenjigmid, Gerelt, 2022. "Ambiguity under growing awareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    17. Wenjun Ma & Burkhard C. Schipper, 2017. "Does exposure to unawareness affect risk preferences? A preliminary result," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(2), pages 245-257, August.
    18. Galanis, Spyros, 2015. "The value of information under unawareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 384-396.
    19. Sarah Auster, 2012. "Asymmetric Awareness and Moral Hazard," Economics Working Papers ECO2012/23, European University Institute.
    20. Ying-Ju Chen & Xiaojian Zhao, 2013. "Solution Concepts of Principal-Agent Models with Unawareness of Actions," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-24, August.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2604.15264. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.