Pretense Part I

Three related questions—metaphysical, epistemological, and psychological—about pretense and its relationship to imagination are distinguished. Answers to the metaphysical and epistemological questions are defended in the balance of the chapter. In response to the metaphysical question of what it is to pretend, it’s argued that we need not invoke a sui generis notion of imagination, nor a concept of pretend, in order to say what qualifies someone as pretending. To pretend that x is y is, roughly, to intentionally make some x y-like while believing that x will not, in the process, become a y. Nor, in answer to the epistemological question, need we hold that the recognition of pretense in others requires attributing to them sui generis imaginings, or a primitive mental state concept of PRETEND. Pretense can be recognized—when it is recognizable at all—via superficial features of a person’s behavior.