CONTRIBUTI / 10 / Paolo Beretta
Katabasis. Memory of the Origin and the Istitution of Identity
The first two sections of this essay are devoted to the activity of memory in the foundation of political community through the examples of the myth of Athenian autochthony, on the basis of Enrico Montanari’s work Il mito dell’autoctonia, and Plato’s political project in the dialogues Republic, Timaeus and Critias, through the concept of katabasis and opposition between land and sea, i.e. Athens and Atlantis. In the last section, I raise the question about the speculative substance of memory by the relation between condition and conditioned, in the context of the «Positing reflection» in the Doctrine of essence of Hegel’s Science of Logic, and through the action of Mnemosyne in relation with Fanes and Chronos in Orphic tradition, to come to face the subject of nostalgia for zoe, indestructible life of Dionysus, as the basis of human community.
