Notes
INTRODUCTION
1. On this point and others, see the crucial essay by Jean-Luc Nancy, The Inoperative Community, trans. Peter Connor et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), a text to which I owe an unpayable debt, as is the case for every
munus given us in the form of the most unexpected gift.
2. On the ambiguous "return" of community, see more generally Renaissance
der Gemeinscbaft? Stabile Theorie und neue Theoreme, ed. Carsten Schiilter (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1990); and Gemeinscbaft und Gerechtigkeit, ed. Micha
Brumlik and Hauke Brunkhors (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1993).
3. See in this regard the entry for "political" in Roberto Esposito, Novepensieri
sullapolitica (Bologna: II Mulino, 1993), 15-38.
4. As Michael J. Sandel expresses it m Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 143. The second expression comes from
Philip Selznick, "Foundations of Communitarian Liberalism," in The Essential
Communitarian Reader, ed. Amitai Etzioni (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
1998 ), 6.
5. See Emile Benveniste, Lndo-Europeaji Language and Society, trans. Elizabeth
Palmer (Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1973), even if Benveniste explains that totusdoesn't appear to be derived from teutabut rather from tomentum.
Yet given that this term signifies "filling" [imbottitura], "compactness," and "fullness," the semantic framework doesn't change.
6. Max Weber, Basic Concepts in Sociology, trans. H. P. Secher (New York: Philosophical Library, 1962), 91 [emphasis in original]. Compare on this point Furio
Ferraresi's "La comunita politica in Max Weber," Filosofia politica 2 (1997): 181—
210, as well as Gregor Fitzi, "Un problema linguistico-concettuale nelle traduzioni
di Weber: 'comunita,'" Filosofia politica z (1994): 257—268.
7. Ferdinand Tonnies as well in Community and Civil Society, ed. Jose Harris,
trans. Jose Harris and Margaret Hollis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2001) thought the earth was the first thing that was properly possessed by the humanity community. On this point, see Sandro Chignola, " Quidquid est in territorio est de territorio. Nota sul rapporto tra comunita etnica e Stato-nazione," Filo-
A
152
Notes
sofia politica i (1993): 49-51- More generally, see Etienne Balibar and Immanuel
Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, trans. Chris Turner (New
York: Routledge, 1991).
8. This is Carl Schmitt's well-known thesis. See especially The Nomos of the
Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europeaum, trans. G. L. Ulmen
(New York: Telos Press, 2003), 67-79. Let's not forget though that it was precisely Schmitt who attempted in his own way to distance the concept of "community" from the "tyranny of values." See Le categorie del politico (Bologna: II Mulino,
1972), especially note 59, where Schmitt refers to his previous text on community,
"Der Gegensatz von Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft als Beispiel einer zweigliedrigen Unterscheidung," in Estudios Juridico-Sociales. Homenaje al Profesor Luis Legaz
y Lacambra (Saragossa, Spain: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 1960),
160.
9. "That, again, which is common to anything else, will not be peculiar to the
thing defined." Quintillian's Institutes of Oratory: Education of an Orator, trans.
Rev. John Selby Watson (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1856), 39.
10. See Alois Walde and Johann Baptist Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches
Worterbuch (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1938-1956).
11. Thesaurus linguae latinae, vol. 8, 1662; Egidio Forcellini, Lexicon totius latinitatis, vol. 3 (Lipsiae: In Libraria hahniana, 1835), 313.
12. Julius Paulus, Dig. 50.16.18.
13. Domitius Ulpianus, Dig. 50.16.194.
14. Netta Zagagi, "A Note on munus, munus fungi in Early Latin," Glotta 60
(1982): 280.
15. Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society, 53-104; and L'roblems in
General Linguistics, trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek (Coral Gables, FL: University of
Miami Press, 1971). For Marcel Mauss, see The General Theory of Magic, trans.
Robert Brain (London: Routledge, 1972), 108-121.
16. PR, 125.18.
17. "A gift is properly an unreturnable giving . . . a thing which is not given with the intention of a return" {Summa Theologica, la, q.38, a.2, c). On the
doubled semantics of the term Gift, see also Mauss, Gift-Gift, in Melanges offerts
a Charles Andler par ses amis et e'lhves (Strasbourg: Publications de la Faculte des
lettres de l'Universite de Strasbourg, 1924); and Jean Starobinski, Largesse (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
18. Alfred Ernout and Antoine Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue
latine (Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1967).
19. Plautus, Mercator, 105.
20. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary Founded on Andrews' Edition of Freund's Latin Dictionary: Revised, Enlarged, and in Great Part
Rewritten (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). Manfred Riedel observes as much in
Notes
153
the entry for Gesellschaft, Gemeinschaft'm Geschichtliche Grundbegrifte. Historisches
Lexicon zurpolitisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Klert-Cotta,
1972), 804-805.
21. RE, 127.7. See the entry for munus in Realencyclopa'die der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. August Pauly and Georg Wissowa, vol. 31 (Stuttgart: J. B.
Metzler, 1894), 650.
22. In this regard note the first meaning of communitas that, for example, the
Oxford Latin Dictionary supplies: "Joint possession or use, participation, partnership, sharing," even if concluding with "Obligingness" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 370.
23. J. L. Marion now suggests "gifted" [adonne] in Being Given: Toward a
Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 248-319. Always see, on the "impossible" semantics of the gift,
Jacques Derrida, Given Time. I, Counterfeit Money, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), though perhaps more relevant, LEthique
du don: Jacques Derrida et la pense'e du don (Paris: Metailie-Transirion: Diffusion
Seuil, 1992). I have already discussed this "deconstructive" line of the gift in relation to that "constructive" one elaborated for some time now by those authors
grouped around the journal M.A. U.S.S. and, in particular, Alain Caille and Serge
Latouche in Roberto Esposito, "Donner la technique," La revue du M.A.U.S.S.,
no. 6 (1999), 190—206.
24. Of course I am speaking of Paul Celan. Martine Broda shows the stronger coherence or the French title. La Rose de personne, with respect to the original
German title. Die Niemandsrose, in his fine essay on Celan titled Dans la main de
personne (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1986), 31.
25. "Though Greeks bring offerings, I fear them still." Virgil, Aeneid, trans.
Charles James Billson (New York: Courier Dover Publications, 1995), 21.
26. Massimo Cacciari takes his cue from this for his L'arcipelago (Milan: Adelphi, 1997), which together with the preceding Geofilosofia dellEuropa (Milan:
Adelphi, 2003), constitutes an irreplaceable framework for understanding the idea
of community.
27. I refer the reader to Bernard Baas's important essay "Le corps du delit," in
Politique et modernite(Paris: College International de Philosophic 1992), to which
I will have occasion to return later.
28. On the complex relation between koinonia and community, see the entry
for Gemeinschaft'm Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum, Sachworterbuch zur
Auseinandersetzung des Christentums mit der antiken Welt, ed. Theodor Klauser,
vol. 9 (Stuttgart: K. W. & A. Hiersemann, 1996), 1202. For an understanding of
the broad and differentiated literature on koinonia, Pier Cesare Boris Koinonia
(Brescia: Paideia, 1972) is still quite useful.