The article is part of a critical trend towards utilitarism, as it has been led, since the eighties, by a group of intellectuals assembled in MAUSS - Anti-Utilitaristic Movement in Social Sciences, whose ideas are publicised in La Revue du MAUSS, published by La Découverte Press, in Paris. Alain Caillé searches to redeem Marcel Mauss's importance to the French sociological school, outlining his contribution to the first systematisation of the gift paradigm, which remains alive in modernity, as shown in many instances by the collaborators of this anti-utilitatistic movement. For Caillé, the gift paradigm is the necessary ground for the creation of a paradoxical and pluridimentional theory of action, which would be able to solve the classical dichotomy between holism and individualism. However, as stated by the publisher of La Revue du MAUSS, the imbrications between gift and symbolism in the constitution of the new paradigm remain inaccurate and somewhat mysterious.
Gift; Marcel Mauss; Symbolism; Anti-utilitarism