Reality as Persistence and Resistance

Abstract

This paper proposes a way to understand the meaning of reality (in science). It first supports the ontological view that reality consists of persistent potentialities, which resist being excluded from existence. A study of the cases of the Higgs boson and the hypothetical F-particle helps to illustrate how real entities persist and resist. The paper then suggests that, perceptually speaking, the results of ordinary perception or observational processes persistently appear under appropriate conditions, and they resist disappearance even when the conditions are not completely appropriate. It also argues that, epistemologically speaking, a truthful theory resists being falsified and persists across replicable observations and experiments. Overall, discussing the notion of reality in the context of the philosophy of science, science and technology studies, and phenomenology, the paper explicates the ‘real’ on the basis of these two concepts: ‘persistence’ and ‘resistance’.