Abstract

The publication of this volume, which should presage the appearance of a second, given the subtitle, is mentioned to have grown out of a seminar, taught by the author at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris during the academic year, 1977-78. The content concerns the concept of the gift, whose aporia of reason constitutes the bulk of the four essays. For those interested in such matters the author includes a three-page foldout of Baudelaire's Counterfeit Money, on a facing page of the original text in French. After that text has been deconstructed in the final two essays, one might, after all, be interested in Baudelaire's original thoughts on the nature of gifts and countergifts.