
























































Editorial – What Is the Gift Paradigm? A Reading Guide


5

Elementa
Intersections between Philosophy, Epistemology 
and Empirical Perspectives

3 
(2023) 

1-2

The Gift

Edited by Francesco Fistetti

Francesco Fistetti
Editorial – What Is the Gift Paradigm? A Reading Guide 7

First Section

Alain Caillé
Recent Extensions of the Gift 15

Jacques T. Godbout
The Enduring Relevance of Mauss’ Essai sur le don 43

Francesco Fistetti
The Gift Paradigm: Towards a Science of “total social facts” 59

Annalisa Caputo
Ricœur, Gift and Poetics 81

Second Section

Andreana Lavanga - Francesco Sulla
Praise as a Gift in the Relationship between Teachers 93 
and Their Students

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Anna Daniela Savino
The Gift of Desire: The “inner voice” between Neuroscience 105 
and Theory of Attachment

Various

Roberta Baldini - Maria Grazia Mada Logrieco
The Gifted Student: Gifts and Talents Development 125

Alessandro De Santis - Stefania Fantinelli
Digital Well-Being as a New Kind of Adaptation 135 
to the New Millennium Needs: A State-of-the-Art Analysis

Salvatore Iuso - Pia Marinaro
Education and Culture: Pluralism in the Age of Globalization 153

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7

Editorial

What Is the Gift Paradigm? 
A Reading Guide
Francesco Fistetti
Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro” (Italy)

doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-edit
fistetti49@gmail.com

In this monographic section of Elementa dedicated to the paradigm of the 
gift, we present the contributions of a number of authors who program-
matically inscribe themselves in the tradition of research that starts from 
the anthropology of Marcel Mauss (1872-1950), grandson of the French 
sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), and arrives at the Revue du 
MAUSS (an acronym for Anti-Utilitarian Movement in the Social Sci-
ences), founded by Alain Caillé in 1981. An astonishing number of essays 
about the problem of the gift in relation to topics of interest in contem-
porary theoretical reflection have been published by philosophers, soci-
ologists, anthropologists, psychoanalysts, economists: from recognition to 
care, from hospitality to citizenship, from inequalities to universal income, 
from feminism to postcolonialism. Adding to this the fact that since 2021 
the first issue of MAUSS International, the English version of the journal, 
has been launched in digital form, is possible to realise that we are facing, 
within the humanities, an intellectual quest of singular importance. The 
seminal text that gave birth to the paradigm of the gift and its extraordi-
nary intellectual adventure is Mauss’s Essay on the Gift (1925), which is still 
a long way from its full fruit: it is possible infact to talk about its poten-
tial for development as a theory of social evolution in the transition from 
primitive and traditional societies to modernity, and at the same time in 
terms of analysis concerning the dynamics of reproduction/transformation 
in the modern and contemporary world. Since the gift, as Mauss expresses 
it, is a “total social fact”, i.e. a phenomenon that diagonally crosses all 
aspects of society (economic, political, aesthetic, symbolic, cultural, etc.), 

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Francesco Fistetti

8

the paradigm of the gift can be considered not as an a priori doctrine or 
a discipline closed in on itself, but as a powerful operator of translation. It 
constructs its own order by appropriating and retranslating other existing 
discourses. Caillé’s book, Extensions du domaine du don (Arles, Actes Sud, 
2019), which is the essay that constitute the Introduction, moves precisely 
in this direction: to indicate the multiple applications of the gift paradigm. 
Similarly, Philippe Chanial’s recent work, Nos généreuses réciprocités (Arles, 
Actes Sud, 2022), explores the “family similarities” between gift and care, 
between gift and gender, between gift and nature, between gift and hospi-
tality, between gift and the politics of emancipation. Again, on the relation-
ship between gift and social justice a fundamental contribution was made 
by Elena Pulcini, Tra cura e giustizia. Le passioni come risorsa sociale (Torino, 
Bollati Boringhieri, 2020). And, with regard to global justice in interna-
tional relations, I have shown that the gift perspective leads to the need to 
adopt an “anti-sacrificial clause” in relations between nations, inspired by 
an imperative of solidarity and generosity towards the most disadvantaged 
peoples and states (Francesco Fistetti, Théories du multiculturalisme. Un 
parcours entre philosophie et sciences sociales, Paris, La Découverte, 2009).

Thanks to this intrinsic openness, the paradigm of the gift, as Alain Caillé 
points out, can be continuously enriched by dialoguing with other theo-
ries and fields of knowledge. But where does this vocation to productively 
communicate and hybridise with other disciplines come from? It derives 
precisely from the twofold discovery that the Essay on the Gift makes: (1) 
what the so-called primitive societies (sociétés primaires) teach us is that in 
them religion, law, economics, politics, etc., are not separate dimensions, 
but form a “total social fact”, of which the cycle of gift (giving/receiving/
returning) constitutes “the rock of eternal morality” and, at the same time, 
“the rock” of politics; (2) from this it follows that man has not always been 
that “economic animal” – homo œconomicus – that the economic and social 
sciences of modernity have celebrated. The pushing towards a tendency 
of an “encyclopaedic” recomposition of the fields of knowledge – without 
this meaning cancelling their epistemological specificity – stems from the 
critique of economic reductionism that makes the “axiomatics of interest” 
the fundamental ideology of modernity. It can be said that the recomposi-
tion of the fields of the human an social knowledge (and of moral and 
political philosophy) on the axis of the paradigm of the gift results in their 
rearticulation and enrichment both in terms of heuristic concepts and in 
terms of practical rationality. For example, since Mauss highlighted the 
agonistic dimension of the gift, i.e. its being linked to a struggle for recog-
nition (of a hierarchical status, of a determined form of superiority, etc.), 

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9

Caillé developed this aspect barely hinted at in the Essay. In short, it is not 
only in sociétés primaires that the act of giving makes possible the recogni-
tion of the value of the recipient (usually an outsider clan) and vice versa 
the recognition by the latter towards the giver. Even in our societies, what 
Axel Honneth has called the “struggle for recognition” (of one’s individu-
ality, one’s rights, social esteem) would be more ethically and politically 
fruitful if it were supplemented by the Maussian discovery of the gift. It 
would avert the mercatist drift of individual rights, that is, the risk that 
their fulfilment depends on the economic conditions of the subject, i.e. 
that rights become a market variable. In fact, recognition of the other is 
always also recognition of a gift or, as one might also say, recognition of 
the other as the giver of something absolutely peculiar. This integration 
between recognition and gift brings out in full light the dimension of posi-
tive indebtedness that characterises the entire course of our existence: ever 
since the gift of life in the womb, we are constantly indebted to those 
who take care of us, who have passed on to us moral values or techniques 
whatever they may be, taught us ways of being in the world, etc. 
On the subject of positive indebtedness towards others, Jacques T. God-
bout has written important pages (Le don, la dette, l’identité. Homo donator 
vs homo œconomicus, Paris, La Découverte, 2000) and in the essay trans-
lated here, he explains that the “need” to donate derives precisely from the 
fact that we are, originally, in a state of debt towards others and that our 
very identity ab initio is “in a state of debt, and isn’t our identity built by 
making active what we have received, by giving in turn”. 
On the originality that the theme of the gift has in Paul Ricœur, Annalisa 
Caputo dwells in the fine essay published here. With respect to the char-
acteristics of recognition (Caillé) and positive indebtedness (Godbout) 
associated with the gift, Caputo insists on the status that Ricœur attrib-
utes to the gift not only as “surprise” and “risk” (because it can be rejected 
and not recognised as such) but also, to use Ricœur’s words, as “un espace 
d’espérance”, “une onde d’irradiation et d’irrigation qui, de façon secrète 
et détourneée, contribue à l’avancée de l’histoire vers des états de paix”: 
and it is, as Caputo points out, “the hidden counter-current in the history 
of violence”. While today in the heart of Europe a war is raging that may 
prelude the nuclear apocalypse, peace truly appears to be the greatest gift, 
a “gratuitousness” that would generate infinite “gratitude” in a virtuous 
circle of positive indebtedness. It was Marcel Hénaff who, in Le don des 
philosophes (Paris, Seuil, 2012), activated a fruitful dialogue between the 
Maussian paradigm of the ceremonial gift and the Ricœurian reflection on 
the link between gift and agape.

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Alain Caillé, for his part, has shown how Ricœur’s masterly analy-
sis of the paths of recognition (Parcours de la reconnaissance, Paris, Stock, 
2004) must be enriched with the Maussian discovery of the gift as an 
agonistic gift and as the political operator of a covenant of coexistence 
between strangers. Both of them, Hénaff and Caillé, have demonstrated 
the groundlessness of the suspicion that, starting from phenomenological 
and Heideggerian positions, authors such as Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc 
Marion nurtured towards the gift paradigm when they believed they saw in 
the gift the sublimation of a utilitarian interest.
Finally, as far as I am concerned, I have recently tried to develop the link 
between the struggle for recognition, as enucleated by Mauss and Honneth, 
and the concept of hegemony elaborated by Antonio Gramsci in the Prison 
Notebooks. In fact, just as every struggle for recognition (of the individual, 
of a social group, of states) is a struggle for the recognition of a gift, it is at 
the same time a struggle for hegemony, understood not only in terms of 
material or socio-economic power relations, but also as a conception of the 
world and as culture in the anthropological sense, capable of opposing the 
dominant ideology of generalised utilitarianism. Hence the need to come 
to terms, to “lay down one’s arms”, i.e. to constantly renegotiate the rules 
and values of democratic coexistence in order to make it ever more inclu-
sive and participatory. As Mauss states at the end of the Essay, reactivating 
the cycle of the gift (giving/receiving/returning) consists, today more than 
ever, in understanding that, in order to build a common and plural world, 
the conditions of a social (and, one might add, geopolitical) order must 
be established in which “to oppose without slaughtering each other and to 
give without sacrificing themselves to one another”. 

The second part presents an in-depth psycho-pedagogical exploration of 
the theme of the Gift and consists of two contributions.
The first, by Andreana Lavanga and Francesco Sulla, titled “Praise as 
a Gift in the Relationship between Teachers and Their Students”, closely 
examines studies conducted since the 1950s on the effects of praise in the 
teacher-student relationship. Acknowledging praise as a gift, it demon-
strates its potential to enhance adaptive behavior, diminish problematic 
behavior in the classroom, convey positive emotions, and improve the 
overall classroom atmosphere.
The second contribution, authored by Anna Daniela Savino, titled “The 
Gift of Desire: The ‘inner voice’ between Neuroscience and Theory of 
Attachment”, examines the phenomenon of desire and explores the experi-

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Editorial – What Is the Gift Paradigm? A Reading Guide

11

ence and capacity to desire. It delves into the post-pandemic scenario of 
Covid-19 and the associated “crisis of desire”. Utilizing recent findings in 
affective neuroscience and critiquing Lacan’s perspectives, a new herme-
neutic is established, highlighting the interplay between gift and desire.

Copyright (©) 2023 Francesco Fistetti 
Editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) LED Edizioni Universitarie

 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 
 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to cite this paper:
Fistetti, F. (2023). Editorial – What is the gift paradigm? A reading guide. Elementa. 
Intersections between Philosophy, Epistemology and Empirical Perspectives, 3(1-2), 7-11. doi: 
https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-edit

Elementa. Intersections between Philosophy, Epistemology and Empirical Perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 
https://www.ledonline.it/elementa - Online ISSN 2785-4426 - Print ISSN 2785-4558

https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-edit
https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 

	Elementa_3-2023-1-2_00b_Sommario.pdf
	Editorial
	What Is the Gift Paradigm?
A Reading Guide

	First Section
	Recent Extensions of the Gift
	The Enduring Relevance
of Mauss’ Essai sur le don
	The Gift Paradigm: Towards a Science of “total social facts”
	Ricœur, Gift and Poetics

	Second Section
	Praise as a Gift in the Relationship between Teachers and Their Students
	The Gift of Desire: The “inner voice” between Neuroscience and Theory
of Attachment

	Various
	The Gifted Student: Gifts and Talents Development
	Digital Well-Being as a New Kind
of Adaptation to the New Millennium Needs: A State-of-the-Art Analysis
	Education and Culture: Pluralism
in the Age of Globalization





