Milad Doueihi's 'Le Paradis Terrestre' Explores the Myth of Eden in Modern Thought

In 'Le Paradis Terrestre' (Éditions du Seuil), historian of ideas Milad Doueihi examines how the myth of the Garden of Eden has shaped modern philosophy and culture from the Renaissance to Nietzsche. Doueihi traces the secularization of the biblical narrative, showing how thinkers like Kant and Nietzsche reinterpreted the Fall as a necessary condition for reason or as divine parody. The book highlights heterodox readings, including the androgyne myth from Plato's Symposium and the 17th-century visionary Antoinette Bourguignon, who imagined Adam as a luminous hermaphrodite. Doueihi argues that despite scientific advances, the Genesis story persists as a structural model for utopian thinking, from political ideologies to technological fantasies of genetic modification. The work draws on Pierre Bayle's 'Dictionnaire Critique' and Jean Starobinski's analysis of Rousseau to demonstrate how modern thought both rejects and inherits biblical categories. Doueihi concludes that contemporary dreams of origin—whether Darwinian or artistic—remain haunted by the lost paradise, as evoked by Nicolas Poussin's shepherds discovering mortality in Arcadia.