The practice of make-believe has traditionally been viewed as valuable by psychologists and philosophers more or less exclusively as a mechanism for social initiation, a tool for everyday problem solving, or a method for children to learn about adult responsibilities. This instrumentalist approach has influenced the development of a wide variety…

In this article, the author talks about the philosophical adventures of the characters in L. Frank Baum's Lands of Oz and Ev stories and discusses how such stories can stimulate reflections on philosophically interesting questions. Frank Baum is considered as the first American writer of philosophical fantasy for children for writing "The…

Before children learn to read, they act like readers when they play with materials and objects like readers. In play, children beam their projective imagination upon inert material things and animate them with fantasy, infusing objects with meaning. The question of "the real" haunts the psychology of play and through play, the theory of fantasy:…

People speculate with the fantastic. Fantasy is a celebrity and money-making machine. As a module in people's brains, it has the capacity to transform plain junk into gold that glitters. Fantasy mobilizes and instrumentalizes the fantastic to form and celebrate spectacles that exist and have always existed--illusions of social relations of…

This paper makes two principal assertions: first, that Coleridge's "Biographia Literaria" is a valuable and hitherto neglected resource for aesthetic educators and, second, that the distinction Coleridge makes between fancy and imagination affords the aesthetic educator a unique insight into the differences between the popular and fine…

This paper explores the relevance of theories in developmental psychology, cognitive development, acquisition of verbal skills, studies of fantasy, and in personality for research in composition. The basis of this essay is that composing is a dynamic process central to normal human functioning rather than a simple product of expression. (Author/RK)