Pretense and Imagination

Issues of pretense and imagination are of central interest to philosophers, psychologists, and researchers in allied fields. In this entry, we provide a roadmap of some of the central themes around which discussion has been focused. We begin with an overview of pretense, imagination, and the relationship between them. We then shift our attention to the four specific topics where the disciplines' research programs have intersected or where additional interactions could prove mutually beneficial: the psychological underpinnings of performing pretense and of recognizing pretense, the cognitive capacities involved in imaginative engagement with fictions, and the real-world impact of make-believe. In the final section, we discuss more briefly a number of other mental activities that arguably involve imagining, including counterfactual reasoning, delusions, and dreaming

Pretense and imagination

Issues of pretense and imagination are of central interest to philosophers, psychologists, and researchers in allied fields. In this entry, we provide a roadmap of some of the central themes around which discussion has been focused. We begin with an overview of pretense, imagination, and the relationship between them. We then shift our attention to the four specific topics where the disciplines' research programs have intersected or where additional interactions could prove mutually beneficial: the psychological underpinnings of performing pretense and of recognizing pretense, the cognitive capacities involved in imaginative engagement with fictions, and the real-world impact of make-believe. In the final section, we discuss more briefly a number of other mental activities that arguably involve imagining, including counterfactual reasoning, delusions, and dreaming. WIREs Cogn Sci 2011 2 79–94 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.91 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs websitePeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78499/1/91_ftp.pd

Introduction: Possible Worlds Theory Revisited

This volume systematically outlines the theoretical underpinnings of the possible worlds approach, provides updated methods for analyzing fictional narrative, and profiles those methods via the analysis of a range of different texts, ..

Para-modern utopia : a comparative study of indigenous and Japanese literatures in the works of Cherie Dimaline’s The marrow thieves and Haruki Murakami’s Hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world

Abstract : This memoire challenges the utopian tradition by exploring Canadian Indigenous and Japanese literatures. Aspects of the utopian in Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Theives and Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World manifest as counterfactual dialogue, which unconventionally incorporates narrative temporalities such as “spiralling time” in the case of Dimaline and the “mise en abime” of frozen time in the case of Murakami. The study explores utopia within its western tradition (beginning with Plato) and identifies similarities in Japanese culture. The two texts, and utopia in general, are engaged in knowledge acquisition. The two authors under study problematize a western tradition of utopian rhetoric and representation by critiquing and subverting the ideals of Enlightenment modernity (universal rationality, static and totalizing ideologies, teleological progress). The study analyzes non-rational, non-sensical, fantastical elements of the texts as equally valid to the more predominantly accepted realist, rational interpretation of both Utopia and realism. The utopian function in the two texts resists acts of collective forgetting that place the individual as a perpetually, always already new identity, unburdened by the past. Furthermore, the texts are examples of a-logical epistemology, an approach to knowledge acquisition that includes rather than dismisses a non-rational methodology. The memoire interprets the utopian desire, or social dreaming, underlying the two texts as relational existence, a way of being and knowing that resists historical forgetting and promotes the active engagement of finding one’s role as an individual in the collective.Ce mémoire remet en question la tradition utopiste en explorant les littératures autochtone et japonaise. Les aspects de l’utopie dans The Marrow Theives de Cherie Dimaline et Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World de Haruki Murakami se manifestent sous la forme d’un dialogue contrefactuel qui incorpore de manière non conventionnelle des temporalités narratives telles que le « temps en spirale » dans le cas de Dimaline et la mise en abime de temps figé dans le cas de Murakami. L’étude explore l’utopie au sein de sa tradition occidentale (en commençant par Platon) et identifie des similitudes dans la culture japonaise. Les deux textes, et l’utopie en général, sont engagés dans l’acquisition de connaissances. Les deux auteurs étudiés problématisent une tradition occidentale de rhétorique et de représentation utopiques en critiquant et en subvertissant les idéaux de la modernité des Lumières (rationalité universelle, idéologies statiques et totalisantes, progrès téléologique). L’étude analyse les éléments non rationnels, absurdes et fantastiques des textes comme étant tout aussi valables qu’une interprétation réaliste et rationnelle, celle-ci étant plus généralement acceptée dans la tradition utopiste et du réalisme. La fonction utopiste dans les deux textes résiste aux actes d’oubli collectif qui placent l’individu comme une identité perpétuellement, toujours déjà nouvelle, déchargée du passé. De plus, les textes sont des exemples d’épistémologie a-logique, une approche de l’acquisition de connaissances qui inclut, au lieu de rejeter, une méthodologie non rationnelle. Le mémoire interprète le désir utopiste, ou rêve social, sous-jacent aux deux textes comme une existence relationnelle, une manière d’être et de savoir qui résiste à l’oubli historique et favorise l’engagement actif afin de trouver son rôle en tant qu’individu dans le collectif