Diana Coole and Samantha Frost argue that social and political enquiry Essay

Diana Coole and Samantha Frost argue that social and political enquiry needs a new ontology which incorporates matter. Why Wha - Essay Example Coole and Frost insist that emerging realities in the fields of sciences, arts, geography, and other disciplines are sufficient proof that matter contains more active and viable qualities that previously thought. A precise understanding of the case made by the two thinkers regarding the need for ontological reviews of political and social inquiries should begin with an assessment of the new qualities, which they assign to matter. Coole and Frost argue that matter is an excess and a force (Coole & Frost, 2010). By this, they imply that it can influence actions, activities, and processes in as many areas as it is represented. Furthermore, the two philosophers adopt the position that matter has some form of relationality and an element of difference. According to their argument, these qualities make matter active, unpredictable, self-creative, and productive. These new perceptions of matter foster alternative views regarding the influence and relationship between matter and discourses s uch as political and social realities. Coole and Frost engages significantly with the problem of dualism, which poses problems in dealing with the cultural theory. Within the context of new materialism, the two authors seek to entrench the view that the mind is essentially a material entity. By this position, new materialism challenges the views adopted by transcendentalism and humanism, which emphasize on the duality between the mind and the body. New materialism suggests that the body is the object of the mind and the two are not entirely separate but relate in one uniform continuum. It is important to regard new materialism in light of the different aspects that relate to it. For instance, by emphasizing on the primacy of the material, this new approach promotes the matter to a level that articulates various concerns that relate to the characteristic of various discourses. Other proponents of the position adopted by Coole and Frost suggest that matter feels, suffers, yearns, conv erses, desires, and remembers. Following this position, it is possible to demonstrate that the essence of all reality is resident in matter. The arguments presented by Coole and Frost have the effect of affirming the cultural theory by challenging the foundations on which modernism and post-modernism are founded. The elimination of the Cartesian divide between the mind and the body resolves one of the fundamental philosophical problems that continue to engage different schools of philosophers. It might be argued that the weight of the evidence presented in the work of the two philosophers draws significantly from the ordinary experiences and the transformations in reality as manifest in the emerging changes in nearly all spheres of life. The focus on matter changes the course of the debate between the essence of the body in ways that redefine a wide range of discourses including feminism, gender differences, sexuality, and other realities that seek to demonstrate the link between th e mind, the self, and the body (Dyke, 1987, p. 106). Another important problem that the two philosophers seek to explore is the place of justice and ethics within the context of new materialism. Their perspectives on this matter are that the values of justice and ethics are part of matter as understood within the bigger picture of materialism. This position is