Abstract
Like many others who work in continental philosophy, Jean-Luc Marion has written on the gift and its possibility. His essay attempts to refute Jacques Derrida’s conclusion that the gift as such is impossible, as its structure is in fact always one of exchange within an economic horizon. Marion first presents the gift as it appears within the horizon of economy and identifies the reasons for the impossibility of the gift. He therefore reasons that the gift must be examined under another, more primordial horizon—givenness, where the gift becomes possible as non-self-identical and unconditioned possibility. This paper provides an alternative solution that allows for the gift in a more ordinary sense to occur as gift according exclusively to the condition of possibility of the gratuitousness of the giver.
Recommended Citation
Cassara, Bruno
(2015)
"The Possibility of the Gift,"
Akadimia Filosofia: Vol. 1:
Iss.
1, Article 5.
Available at:
https://research.library.fordham.edu/apps/vol1/iss1/5