The Gift and the Common Good

What do we live for? What do we work for? What holds us together? In the Western tradition, the answer to these questions has always been associated with the concept of the common good. But is it suitable for the globalized world of tomorrow? An interculturally competent social philosophy requires new philosophical impulses for this purpose. The concept of the gift as the unattainable principle of meaning for all social exchange is discussed in this volume by thinkers from China, America, and Europe regarding its applicability. Two perspectives emerge, not primarily along the boundaries between different cultural contexts, but also transcending them: the gift as the performance, indeed the dedication of the individual for the whole, and the gift as the starting point of individual meaning-making owed to the whole. There is already today an institutionalized economy of the gift, which from an economic philosophical perspective can be guiding for global interaction. This is also philosophically reflected upon here.