Abstract:
A very simplified description of physics could be, according to Wikipedia, natural science that
involves the study of matter and its motion and behaviour through space and time. In relation
to this simplified description of physics, metaphysics would then be that which gives matter,
or metaphysics would be the reflection on the space and time in which matter is given. Yet,
how are space and time connected? It is in language, or more specifically narrative (fiction),
that space and time are connected or brought together – language, as the time-space-play in
which matter and its motion and behaviour is revealed or created. One could argue that what
I have just written is then also a narrative in which physics and metaphysics are given in a
specific space and time, the space and time of this article. Thus, one could argue that
metaphysics is fiction, but that argument itself would be fiction, and therefore one would be
left with a fictional metaphysics of fiction.
Description:
This research is part of the
project, ‘Towards a practical
postfoundational theology as
public theology in response
to the challenges of lived
religion in contemporary
Southern Africa’, directed by
Prof. Dr Johann Meylahn,
Department Practical
Theology, Faculty of
Theology, University of
Pretoria.
