What is the nature of the kind of behaviour English speakers call “acting”? A popular strategy is to say that acting is a kind of pretence, and onstage actors pretend to do and say what the character does and says. This paper aims to reject this “pretence theory of acting”. To do so, first, I introduce several counterexamples showing that actors do not engage in pretending but still enact their characters; second, I argue that the reasons in favour of the (...) pretence theory of acting are not persuasive; finally, I argue that the pretence theory of acting can lead to a misunderstanding about acting. (shrink)

Research on the development of Theory of Mind has often focused predominantly on belief attribution, but recently moves have been made to include also other mental states. This includes especially factive mental states like knowledge, where factive Theory of Mind may turn out to be more basic than non-factive Theory of Mind. I argue that children’s early pretend play also carries important implications for Theory of Mind research. Although pretend play does not directly provide evidence of Theory of Mind in (...) young children, it provides evidence of an early ability to handle inconsistent representations, although this ability to access these inconsistent representations may be contingent on external support. Dealing with inconsistent representations is arguably an important component of non-factive Theory of Mind and underlies belief attribution. This carries important implications for debates in Theory of Mind, especially concerning the relationship between factive and non-factive Theory of Mind. I also consider to what extent the findings from pretend play can be extended to support and illuminate the findings from the implicit false belief task. (shrink)

The project of this paper is to synthesize enactivist cognitive science and practice theory in order to develop a new account of pretend play. Pretend play is usually conceived of as a representationalist phenomenon where a pretender projects a fictional mental representation onto reality. It thus seems that pretense can only be explained in representationalist terms. In this paper, we oppose this usual approach. We instead propose not only new explanatory tools for pretend play, but also a fundamental reconceptualization of (...) the phenomena of pretend play, that is, of the very explanandum of theories of pretense. To do so, we suggest combining the turn to action and embodiment in the cognitive sciences with the practice turn in the humanities. From our point of view, pretend play has to be seen in its role in human life as a whole, which is to help children to learn to master the complex sociocultural contingencies of the manifold social practices that make up social reality. Pretend play should therefore be conceived as alternative sense-making that is always related, in varying ways, to ordinary social practices. Pretenders do not need to project mental representations onto reality, but make sense of their surroundings in different ways than encultured adults in ordinary practices. In the paper, we spell out this view and show how it enables an enactivist reconceptualization of imagination, intentions and knowledge, which are usually thought of as being available only to representationalist accounts of pretense. (shrink)

Imagination is often considered the pinnacle of representational cognition. Looking at the concrete details of imagining in context, this paper aims to contribute to the emerging literature that is challenging this representational view by offering a relational and radically situated alternative. On the basis of observing architects in the process of making an architectural art installation, we show how to consider imagination not as de-contextualized achievement by an individual but as an opening up to larger-scale “affordances,” i.e. the unfolding possibilities (...) for action. We show how the architects coordinate the enactment of multiple affordances across different timescales, from small-scale affordances of picking up a mobile phone to the large-scale affordance of making the installation that takes months to unfold. These affordances get co-determined as they are jointly enacted. It is within this determining process that imagination too finds its place. On our view it is the indeterminacy of multiple affordances unfolding in action simultaneously that can be experienced as imaginative. The indeterminate character of this coordinative process allows activities to widen and open up, letting new possibilities for action enter into them. (shrink)

This article presents a developmental ecological approach to the emergence and development of metaphor in children, based on the ecological psychology tradition following the work of J.J. Gibson, and its extension into developmental research and theory, as developed by E.J. Gibson and others. This framework suggests that a basic compatibility and meaningfulness exists between the knower and the known, based on the direct perception of affordances. To build an ecological understanding of metaphor we need to clarify how this metaphysical ground (...) plays out in acts of knowing that involve metaphor. In this endeavor, it is important to understand the ontogenesis of novel insightful metaphors and the role of perception. Developmental ecological psychology has repeatedly shown that infants can perceive meta-modal invariants that specify persistence of qualities. Early metaphors are consequences of the process in which invariants over naturally occurring kinds are perceived. Thus, novel metaphor production is an act of situated and experience-dependent perceiving and acting in the ecological world of socially shared meanings. Examples from previous experimental and qualitative research are reviewed to substantiate theoretical claims. (shrink)

The ecological approach to object pretend play, developed from the ecological perspective, suggests an action- and affordance based perspective to account for pretend object play. Theoretical, as well as empirical reasons, support the view that children in pretense incorporate objects into their play in a resourceful and functionally appropriate way based on the perception of affordances. Therefore, in pretense children are not distorting reality but rather, they are perceiving and acting upon action possibilities. In this paper, we argue for the (...) viability of an ecological theoretical framework to pretend object play which has been traditionally understood as a representational and metarepresentational ability. We discuss the origins and basic assumptions of the ecological approach to pretense. We layout details by presenting a qualitative analysis of a pretend play episode and discuss the results of an experimental study inspired by the ecological assumptions. We discuss pretend object play in the context of ecological work on tool use. We address the relationship between the enactive and the ecological approaches to pretend play, pointing out similarities as well as differences. We conclude that ecological and enactive approaches have shown that it is possible to challenge accepted interpretations and seek explanatory frameworks that could move the field in new directions. (shrink)

This paper considers the epistemic role that embodiment plays in imagining. We focus on two aspects of embodied cognition understood in its strong sense: explicit motoric processes related to performance, and neuronal processes rooted in bodily and action processes, and describe their role in imagining. The paper argues that these two aspects of strongly embodied cognition can play distinctive and positive roles in constraining imagining, thereby complementing Amy Kind's argument for the epistemic relevance of imagination "under constraints" and Magdalena Balcerak (...) Jackson's argument for justification by imagination. (shrink)

In this text, we will introduce the reader to the special issue on _Pretense and Imagination from the Perspective of 4E Cognitive Science_. To do so, we will introduce the concept of 4E cognition and showcase what the available 4E approaches to pretense and imagination look like, in particular if they are contrasted with current cognitivist accounts. Against this background, we provide an overview of the articles included in this special issue.

This article proposes how theatre, as a site of expert adult imaginative play, provides a unique window into how E-cognition can advance our understanding of imagination as a lifelong practice. I characterize theatrical activity as highly developed actions and strategies for wielding bodies, objects, and environments as imaginative practice. Through an enactively based case study of the play _Provenance_ by Autopoetics ( 2018 ), I reveal how creation and performance processes literally and epistemically engineer novel niches for the spectator. This (...) case study investigates how _Provenance_’s recurring theatrical device of newspaper manipulation constitutes a cognitive device for an affordance-oriented and predictive spectator. As I track the priorities and processes of these longstanding play development and performance techniques informed by the theatrical tradition of Jacques Lecoq (1921–1999), I suggest how concepts such as affordances, affordance spaces, predictive engagement, and the free energy principle are apt conceptual tools for understanding how these practices engender imaginative encounters. I follow this analysis by suggesting, via the free energy principle’s conception of “models,” that there may be cognitive consequences to the possible changes experienced by the spectator that exceed theatrical experience. I conclude this discussion by pointing toward how my 4-E inflected insights on the imaginative practices of _Provenance_ may be applicable to imagination and pretense in other arenas not just behind but also beyond the footlights. (shrink)

Whether a person is pretending, or not, is a function of their beliefs and intentions. This poses a challenge to 4E accounts of pretense, which typically seek to exclude such cognitive states from their explanations of psychological phenomena. Resulting tensions are explored within three recent accounts of imagination and pretense offered by theorists working in the 4E tradition. A path forward is then charted, through considering ways in which explanations can invoke beliefs and intentions while remaining true to 4E precepts. (...) To make real progress in explaining pretense, 4E theorists will need to grow comfortable with the idea that two agents whose outward behaviors and environments are, in the short term, the same, may be guided by quite different beliefs and intentions, in virtue of which only one is pretending. In this way, the scientific project of explaining pretense remains inseparable from the more general project of determining which beliefs and intentions are appropriate to ascribe to which kinds of entities, given which kinds of behaviors. (shrink)

This paper argues that radical enactivism (RE) offers a framework with the required nuance needed for understanding of the full range of the various forms of pretense. In particular, its multi-storey account of cognition, which holds that psychological attitudes can be both contentless and contentful, enables it to appropriately account for both the most basic and most advanced varieties of pretense. By comparison with other existing accounts of pretense, RE is shown to avoid the pitfalls of representationalist theories while also (...) allowing us to combine the best elements of the praxeological enactivist (Weichold & Rucińska, 2021 ) and Langland-Hassan’s ( 2020, 2021 ) proposals about pretense, while avoiding their key shortcomings. (shrink)

In this paper, we deal with the issue of how it is possible for pretending children to engage in exploratory performances and entertain alternative states of affairs. We question the approach according to which pretenders must be capable of counterfactual reasoning. Instead, we follow an alternative action-based framework on cognition and thus pretense, which argues for a much more profound role of the context of play than the questioned Counterfactual Thinking Approach to Pretense (CTAP). First, we motivate this shift in (...) theoretical perspective by critiquing CTAP and providing arguments in favor of the action-based alternative we endorse. Then, we demonstrate that the action-based framework allows for a fruitful analysis of pretense in terms of its context rather than (solely) mind-internal processes. This paper proposes that (1) thematic play-frames enable unusual manipulations with objects and words, and invite dynamic interactions between players who can discover new possibilities for action and communication, as well as that (2) pretense contexts understood generally as opposed to non-pretense contexts have selected features—specifically the adults’ approval of playing with cultural norms, the looseness of constraints, and the lack of particular goals leading to children’s positive feelings—that are genuinely conducive to play explorations. Finally, we discuss other contexts of possibilities, as well as the educational prospects of particular context-to-context transmissions. (shrink)

In this paper, we review three influential theories of imagination in order to understand how the dynamics of imagination acts could be modeled using formal languages. While reviewing them, we notice that they are not detailed enough to account for all the mechanisms involved in creating and developing imaginary worlds. We claim those theories could be further refined into what we call the Common Frame for Imagination Acts, which defines a framework that can be used to study the dynamics of (...) imagination using formal languages, and we support our claim by showing how the framework allows to model certain imagination acts step by step. Then, we introduce the Rhombus of Imagination, which is a visual tool that can be used in conjunction with our framework to study the procedural structure of different kinds of imagination acts and identify their dynamic properties. (shrink)

In this paper, we review three influential theories of imagination in order to understand how the dynamics of imagination acts could be modeled using formal languages. While reviewing them, we notice that they are not detailed enough to account for all the mechanisms involved in creating and developing imaginary worlds. We claim those theories could be further refined into what we call the Common Frame for Imagination Acts, which defines a framework that can be used to study the dynamics of (...) imagination using formal languages, and we support our claim by showing how the framework allows to model certain imagination acts step by step. Then, we introduce the Rhombus of Imagination, which is a visual tool that can be used in conjunction with our framework to study the procedural structure of different kinds of imagination acts and identify their dynamic properties. (shrink)

This paper presents pretending as an enacted and fundamentally social activity. First, it demonstrates why we should think of pretense as inherently social. Then, it shows how that fact affects our theory in terms of what is needed in order to pretend. Standardly, pretense is seen as requiring a mechanism that allows one to bypass the “obvious” re- sponse to the environment in order to opt for a symbolic response; that mechanism is im- aginative and representational. This paper shows that (...) the Enactive Account of Pretense reconsiders the idea that one needs to respond to an absent environment when pretending, proposing instead that socially con- stituted perceptual affordances for play allow for non-obvious ways of responding to the present environment. The enactive account of pretense suggests that one need not posit special cognitive pretense mechanisms and mental scripts in order to account for pretend- ing, as available capacities for active perception and re-enactment of routines suffice. This paper concludes with suggestions for the kinds of cognitive skills that should be sought out to explain pretense. (shrink)