Consider the competing ontological views: everything is made up of water, the five elements, everything is a sphere, the world is a simulation, everything is id

Consider the competing ontological views: everything is made up of water, the five elements, everything is a sphere, the world is a simulation, everything is ideas being perceived by the mind, the world is matter formed by the ideal forms, etc. Those views were prominent among certain intellectuals at different times which go against the grain of everyday experience. Since physicists are trying to understand the fundamental nature of the world, I take it they're used to not accepting appearance as a guide, and are rather operating under whatever philosophical intuition is dominant at the time. Since 19th century physics confirmed the existence of atoms, and the periodic able of ordinary matter is made up of atomic bonds, then it makes since that physicists have been influenced by that guiding intuition. Regardless, fields are probably a better building block for intuition than particles.