The Epistemic Fiduciary of Human Understanding: A Phenomenology of Epistemic Debt

This paper designates by CFLC (Cognitive Fiduciary Life Cycle of Human Understanding) the following theoretical approach: the core structure of human understanding is “epistemic debt”—in contrast to mainstream frameworks that treat cognition as an accumulation of capabilities, subjectivity exists through borrowing from the external, and this borrowing constitutes an irreversible binding. Based on the unpayability of this debt structure, namely the “repayment crisis,” the paper establishes a phenomenology-cognitive science interface, proposes three constitutive propositions and a four-layer architecture, and maintains the interpretability of phenomenological experience through the methodology of weak mechanization. Stress tests from historical prototypes (Einstein, the Luddites) and contemporary cases (the FARS system, the Research Square platform) demonstrate that epistemic debt is concealed, accumulated, and occasionally awakened in the age of technological acceleration. Four falsifiable predictions invite empirical science to attack the protective belt, while the ontological hard core retains irreducibility.