Playing for the sake of playing: an enactive account of pretend play in childhood

Pretend play has often been considered an ‘as if’ state in which children act as if something is the case when it is not. This definition leads to three relevant assumptions. First of all, pretend play is understood as an enclosed concept, requiring that all occurrences of pretend play be distinguishable from other ‘as if’ states, such as error or folly. Secondly, pretend play is described through mentalistic accounts as something occurring for the most part in the head. Finally, pretend play is considered as being related to language by a fundamental isomorphism, both being understood as symbol-manipulating systems. This paper will propose, instead, an enactive approach, questioning these assumptions. First of all, by providing evidence of children’s difficulties with the pretensereality boundary. Secondly, by explaining the active role of objects, actions and people in shaping pretend play in-the-world. Thirdly, by suggesting a different relationship between pretend play and language in action. This will allow to introduce the possibility of considering pretend play an open concept and to evaluate possible consequences of such conceptual shift.