The citation page for Vygotsky:
"The old adage that child's play is imagination in action must be reversed:
we can say that imagination in adolescents and school children is play
without action" in: The role of Play in Development (Ch. 7), Mind in
Society, p.93, Harvard University Press, 1978.
Other paraphrases about the "object/meaning" and "action/meaning" ratios
and their inversions are all from the same chapter.
I am currently writing a paper on Imagination and the Concept of Time in
Psychology in which I am trying to use Einstein's Theory of Relativity,
Bateson's concepts of Play and Fantasy, Lewin's Field Theory, as well as
Vygotsky's theory of Play and Imagination. This is why Prolepsis is a very
important notion for me, and I am not quite sure that I understand it in
the same way you do.
Briefly: whenever we conceptualize future and/or past, we are bringing them
into the present, but at the same time we are changing the "body of
reference" or the "coordinate systems" by which we are determining these
time categories (Einstein's terminology). What does it mean? The Future and
Past exist ONLY in the consciousness, i.e., without their
conceptualization, they are not there in the Present. From the "point of
view" of, let's say, a rock, a mountain, a river, there is no future and no
past. They exist in the Present. To be able to look at the Past (which
brought about their present shape) and at the Future (which will depend on
their present shape and relevant geophysical processes, one has to be able
to create another coordinate system (body of reference)in which one can
"freely" move in the dimension of time, and take a "look" at the Past and
at the Future AS IF they were in the present. This other coordinate system
is built through the cultural mediation which creates a history, i.e. the
Past with a meaning in the Present, and which creates the Future with a
significance for the Present. However, the Time in this other coordinate
system is not the Physical time any more, it is a "cultural-historical"
time, and very different form the physical one. We do not behave in the
Present only, rather, we behave with our knowledge and beliefs about the
Past (individual and social) and we behave with our beliefs, anticipations
and wishes about the Future.
OK, you may ask, where is the imagination here? I think that play in its
most rudimentary and in its most developed forms is the basic mechanism for
creating this other coordinate system. It enables us to "take a look at" or
to "make an image of" something which is not present, and even something
which is present! (vo/obraz/zhenie in Russian, "za/mishly/annie" in
Serbo-Croatian: "into-thought-making"). What is important here is the
ABOUTness because play is not merely living or existing (like a rock, a
mountain, a river), but being able to SEE the life from another
perspective. In fact, ABOUTness is the rudimentary act of reference
inherent in any symbolic behavior. The difference between actual existence
(living) and a perspective on this existence is seen clearly in Vygotsky's
(he cites Sully) example of the two sisters who played being sisters. (pp.
94-95 in Mind in Society). While "in life the child behaves without
thinking that she is her sister's sister, in the game of sisters playing
"sisters", however, they are both concerned with displaying their
sisterhood." (ibid: p. 95). In one sense "sisters" is a physical fact which
does not have to enter into consciousness at all, but in the
cultural-historical sense "sisters" is a value category, a system of
prescribed cultural rules of behavior, feelings and anticipations.
When it comes to the PAST and FUTURE, they exist only as
cultural-historical entities and as such they are carry values and
significances which are beyond the physical time. They are created through
imagination - or processes of "into-thought-making" or "into-image-making"
which themselves derive from communication in play. Einstein's example of
the different coordinate systems is an image of a train passing a certain
embankment. The train is long (infinite) and is continuously passing along
all the points of the embankment. Standing on the embankment, one can only
see a certain section of the train which is passing at present. But being
on the train, (another body of reference, or coordinate system) gives one
another perspective of the "same" embankment. Einstein discussed, of course
differences in the measures of space and time between the embankment and
the train.
To me, being able to get on this train in the first place, is being able to
create, or to imagine, another coordinate system (body of reference) in
which the Past and the Future are always Present (you can walk up and down
the train). But of course this isn't the same Present any more.
References:
Bateson, G. (1972), A Theory of Play and Fantasy, in: Steps to an Ecology
of Mind, Balantine Books, pp. 177-193
Einstein, A. (1952), Relativity, the Special and the General Theory, New
York, Crown Publishers, Inc.
Lewin, K. Defining the "Field at a Given Time" (1943) in: Field Theory in
Social Science, Chicago, Harper & Row, pp. 43-59
Vygotsky, L.S. (1933/1978), The Role of Play in Development, in Mind in
Society, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, pp. 92-104
Ana
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Dr. Ana Marjanovic-Shane
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anchi who-is-at geocities.com
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