L’albero della conoscenza: la dialettica del mito eterno dell’uomo secondo Hegel

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the dialectical nature of the myth of original sin as described by Hegel. For introductory purposes, I will briefly highlight the process by which Hegelian philosophy operates the translation from religious representation to concept, demonstrating how this reading is at the basis of the interpretation of the myth. Then I will analyze the functioning of the dialectical movements of the biblical episode of Genesis 3 within the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, in order to discuss the issues of good and evil, innocence and guilt, will and arbitrariness. In this reconstruction the dialectic will emerge in its importance as a structure that permeates human consciousness as well as reality in general. In the specific case of the tree of knowledge, we will witness the concretization of this eternal conciliation of contradictions in two specific areas, which will be treated in the last section: the question of evil on the one hand, which will be demonstrated as a necessary negative element that triggers the dialectical movement itself, and the question of freedom on the other, which will appear as the result of the emancipation of the subject from the natural state in which he finds himself in the so-called "garden of animals".