The purpose of the special issue is to investigate whether or not 4E Cognition approaches to pretense and imagination are workable, or even provide the best explanations of the respective phenomena. We invite contributions addressing the following questions:
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What does a 4E account of pretense and imagination look like? Can it or should it provide clear conditions under which pretense and imagination occurs?
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What is the scope of 4E approaches to pretense and imagination? Are there spe- cific “higher-level” phenomena of pretense and imagination that are difficult for 4E cognition to explain? Does the fictional character of imaginary engagements provide a problem for embodied-enactive explanations?
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Can there be “basic” imagination that is contentless, and if so, is there also con- tentful non-basic imagination compatible with 4E cognition? And how does such imagination relate to pretending?
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Do particular phenomena of pretense and imagination require representing, and if so, what form of representing? Can there be truly non-representational pretense?
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What is the relationship between pretend play practices, such as role-playing, and cultural and institutional practices, where we embody different roles? Can practices of pretend and imaginative play help in the acquisition of other cognitive skills, such as counterfactual reasoning, planning or decision making?