Even knowledge, in the final analysis, maintains a relationship with ignorance. But it does so through repression or, in an even more effective and potent way, presupposition. The unknown is that which knowledge presupposes as the unexplored country to be conquered; the unconsciousness is the darkness into which consciousness will have to carry its light. In both cases something gets separated in order then to be permeated and attained.
The relationship with a zone of non-knowledge, on the other hand, keeps watch over this zone so that it will remain as it is. This is done not by exalting its darkness (as in mysticism), not by glorifying the arcane (as in liturgy), and not even by filling it with phantasms (as in psychoanalysis). At issue here is not a secret doctrine or a higher science, not a knowledge that we do not know.
Rather, it is possible that the zone of non-knowledge does not really contain anything special at all. Perhaps a zone of non-knowledge does not exist at all; perhaps only its gestures exist. As Kleist understood so well, the relationship with a zone of non-knowledge is a dance.
Giorgio Agamben, from “The Last Chapter in the History of the World” in Nudities, translated by David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella, Stanford University Press, California, 2011
Mirror to the Flower 