What are we talking about when we talk about reality?

Abstract

Appealing to reality as a definitive argument in everyday interactions constitutes a recurrent communicative operation that generally succeeds in closing disagreements. References to reality are presented as irrefutable, functioning as mechanisms that interrupt the potentially indefinite continuation of controversy. The effectiveness of such appeals lies in the presupposition of access to a reality endowed with self-evidence, in relation to which dissent appears irrational. Science likewise refers to reality; however, it does so through highly structured methodological procedures that subject its descriptions to empirical testing. From the perspective of Constructivism and systems theory, reality does not operate as an ultimate foundation of knowledge, but rather as a reference produced in and through observation. Within this framework, certainty cannot be understood as a verification derived from reality itself, but as the result of observational operations that, by drawing distinctions and making designations, constitute that which is subsequently invoked as “reality”.