ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the difference between ordinary and extraordinary gifts, among other things, by the fact that ordinary gifts occur in the context of a 'game', which has already been established between the actors. Breaking the rules represents a break with regulatory norms; a fundamental break with the logic of a game exists, however, when the actors do not orientate themselves towards the constitutive rules of the game. The distinction between normative and regulatory rules has already been discussed several times in the philosophy of authors such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Austin, John Rawls, and John Searle. Harold Garfinkel has made extremely clear in sociology, the importance of constitutive rules for the establishment of common practices and for the functioning of cooperation. Garfunkel's ethnomethodology works out how cooperation is based on the coordinated reference of all interaction participants to constitutive rules.
