The Philosophical Significance of the Commons

A background of a relatively nondiscursive and implicit set of practices is claimed, in this essay, to constitute a cultural commons that makes possible a wide range of foregrounded phenomena in the realm of law and regulation. The essay explores the extent to which this idea can be central, first, to a plausible response to the challenges posed by the argument for “the tragedy of the commons” and, second, to formulating a characterization of the malaise of alienation in the modern period, as well as the ideal of its overcoming.