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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
To my mind, the most urgent current task in the social sciences is one in the context of which the unduly cut-and-dried distinctions between positive and normative, between sociology and ethics, between secular pluralism and religious spirituality, and so on, should be abandoned. I would like to reclaim the legacy of a Marxian-type dialectic by stating that the social sciences today (and I would even risk speaking of a single present-day ‘social science’) have the threefold task of (1) thinking through in depth the directions of a desirable social change, (2) asking what are the ‘resources for action’ already available for this end within the totality of social actors and (3) identifying the moral capacities that need to be stimulated and/or created so that the resources for action which are not yet available, but which are desirable under point (1), may be able to take root and flourish. I defy anyone to disentangle clearly and analytically the positive and normative parts of such a task …
If the somewhat acrimonious debate on the status of the gift that I have had with Alain Caillé for the last two years continues to hold my interest and if I have eventually overcome my irritation in the face of what has occasionally seemed to me a failure of understanding linked to the defence of an ‘article of local faith’, it is because our debate is a fundamental part of the worthwhile task of the social sciences. Nevertheless, I shall make it clear straight away that the expression ‘sociological gift’ hardly satisfies me, in the light of the description of this task which I have just supplied.
1. I refer here to an article which I published in issue 15 (May 2000) of the Revue du MAUSS semestrielle, entitled ‘Mauss et l'éthique du don: les enjeux d'un altruisme méthodologique' (pp. 99-119). There, I defended the viewpoint that Marcel Mauss, because he did not have at his disposal the concept of ‘methodological altruism' which I have taken from the works of Emmanuel Levinas, was incapable of conceiving the gift and its ethical foundations in a sufficiently radical manner. Alain Caillé wrote a fairly acid reply to this article and gave me the opportunity to present a counter-response in the same issue. We had already begun the debate at a conference in Leuven (Belgium) in April 1999, on Mauss and the gift, organized by Toon Van develde, which gave rise to the publication of a collective volume (Gifts and Interests, Louvain, Peeters, 2000). What I have written in the present article seems to me to be one of the last stages of a process of elucidation that has been fascinating and rich in discoveries for me. It will be seen that I emerge more lucid on Mauss, but more convinced than ever of the critical importance of Levinassian ethic.
2. See Revue du MAUSS semestrielle, 15, p. 130.
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