I suggest that the fruit of the tree of knowledge conferred a self-reflective mode of cognition on Adam and Eve. Eating from the fruit developed in them not the ability to experience things—which they already had—but to know that they experienced things. It enabled them to recognize themselves as thosewho experience—i.e. as subjects—as opposed to the experiences themselves. Prior to acquiring this ability, they could already experience nakedness, but they didn’t know that they experienced nakedness. Therefore, they felt no shame.
