Response to Assignment #2

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant'). What's the meaning of it? (Hint: Consider what Sophie discovers about rationalists and empiricists along the way.) How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses" metaphor/experiment.

The meaning of th e"red-tinted glasses" is to prove to us that everything we perceive is how we humans think of it in our own perspective, although it is NOT what it is. For example, people used to think that the world is flat, simply because they see that the floor is flat. However that is not reality, since the world is flat in a scientific way, which is the what Kant have said of the reason, and which I personally think of being logic, instead of emotional, causing how we think of something in our own perpective.

There was once where I saw an optical illusion, what I can see is just random lines and what I think is that it is nothing at all to my point of view. But until someone told me that it is actually to me it is a image of a Dalmatian standing up looking backwards. By this, we can tell that our perpective are influenced by other people's own perpective.

However,in reality it is actually some ink printed on a piece of paper.

"To believe or not to believe"

As we see the things in front of us, we tend to believe in what we see, hear, taste, smell and even touch. Some believe what our senses tell us lead to our answers but do they always lead to the right ones? or are we left to wonder even more? To believe or not to believe.. Right and wrong.. Good and Bad. In our perspective is everything we see divided into borders? exactly in the middle? just simple answers? How do we when we see a blue pen it is blue? How do we know what it feels like to ride a bus? If what we see is what we believe then when we wear a pair of "red-tinted glasses" what will we believe?

Most people matching to Kant's theory believe that "clear limits regarding which conclusions we couldr each through our sense perceptions" therefore us human beings believing everything through our senses. Thus thinking the world is exactly the way we perceive it or the way it appears to our reason. Yet if we see things in a different perspective, for example through Sophie's "red-tinted glasses", we see the things in front of us differently. The metaphor "red-tinted glasses" shows a metaphor in the way we see things (i.e. when we're not wearing the red-tinted glasses, we see everything clearly in colour. But after wearing the red-tinted glasses, we see the exact same thing but just in different shades of red) therefore the glasses limit the way we see reality just like our pure thoughts or logic will.

Let's say a mother and her child that just entered reality sit at home watching nursery rhymes on telly whilst wearing the"red-tinted glasses". The mother having enough experience and basic knowledge knows that when the red-tinted glasses covers her eyes it doesn't determine that everything is red. She then brings up her knowledge and logic from her experience and senses that when she takes of her glasses, she'll see everything in colour. However, the child on the other hand with no experience and absolutely no knowledge at all, not knowing what is red and wearing the "red-tinted glasses" governs her "mind's operation which influence the way the child experiences the world". The child then believes the world is red and it will stay red forever. This leaves and imprint in the child's memory that what she experienced/saw using her senses is how she oprehends that time of the world.

How about the coke advert that recently went off? It shows a man buying a bottle of coke and the process in which the coke machine went through from inserting the coin to the output of the coke bottle coming out. Within the coke maching it showed little tiny men celebrating and cooling the coke and delivering the coke to the output where the man gets his drink. If an adult watched this, through experience they obviously know that there is no "little men" in the machine and atleast have seen what an interior of the drink machines look like. But children on the other hand without any knowledge or experience in SEE-ing a interior of a drink machine would actually believe there are "little men" inside the drink machine. Just like the "red-tinted glasses" which convey the child believing the advert and that "little men" exist inside the drink machines. This is another example of how the "red-tinted glasses" is conveyed metophorically.

Personally, I agree with both points about rationalists (i.e. through knowledge) and empricists (believing through our senses) heavily leaning on kant (as he believe in both), as you can see neither one is truly correct. What we see is something we can believe in but not all are true facts. But what we know and what we can confidently put forward are the true facts which we can put forward through logic reasoning yet without experience we won't be able to describe its appearances and actually determine the thing as a whole.

The glasses is another way that restricts what we see and makes us believe what we see through those glasses limiting the way we perceive reality. We cannot just state the fact the world is red because of the glasses and through what we see through cellophane glasses. But WHAT IF fromt he following prompt, we covered one side of our eyes with the red-tinted glasses and the other eye with blue, would we then say "the world is half red and half blue?"

‘The red tinted glass’ assignment 2

Our sense of perception is greatly affected by vision and the ways we see objects as we identify it. In chapter 25, Albert Knox raises a point that shows “either the world is exactly as we perceive it, or it is the way it appears to our reason”. In the experiment, Sophie was asked to put on the red tinted glass to understand the whole theory. Sophie replies “I see exactly the same as before, expect that it’s all red.” This shows that most of us see the world as it is and understand that no obstruction should be affected. We tend to question ourselves less about daily life because it seems that we are just to use to our very own routines. But this experiment forces us to think getting away from the fact that our insights are limited senses. It brings us up to reflect different possibilities if life and not just rely on what we can recognize already. This also brings up the idea of distinguishing between rationalist and empiricist. Rationalist perceive the world through as explanation, they question the understanding of what we know of. Empiricist sense the world as it is giving to them and take the knowledge from what others tell about directly. I feel those empiricists are not thinkers. They don’t observe enough to be creative or imaginative and believe that many things should be spoon feed to them. Rationalist inquires ever obstacles through reasons and are able to enhance there judgments.

A good example of distinguishing the two perceptions can be shown in Ben, the blindly disabled child. Many of the people consider him as gaining a sixth sense but don’t allow themselves to think why. This concept is very simple as Ben loses his perception through sight he was able to enhance another sense through listening. He would be able to click his fingers and hear the echoes bounce off the obstacles in his ways. Although he loses his judgment visually, it doesn’t explain that Ben’s senses are limited. Referring back to the tinted glass experiment, Sophie was able to perceive and determine reality through what have and currently experience. Once again, if we lose our ability to see things in color it doesn’t represent it limits our senses and we interpret the sense data we receive automatically what we understand.

Assignment #2

“Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant'). What's the meaning of it? (Hint: Consider what Sophie discovers about rationalists and empiricists along the way.) How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses" metaphor/experiment.”

Alberto Knox uses the metaphor “red-tinted glasses” to explain to Sophie about Kant’s idea on how certain conditions leading our minds process that influence on the way we see things. These conditions were our two ‘forms of intuition’, ‘time’ and ‘space’. He emphasized that we can know things before we even experience it.
In order for Sophie to fully understand, Knox carried out an experiment, giving her a pair of red tinted glasses to wear which limited and changed her view of the world, how she could not see the actual colors of the earth, but only in red.

Between empiricists and rationalists, it is clear to see they both disagreed with each other but both had correct theories, to an extent. Rationalists believed that knowledge comes from a reason within our minds. Everything we know for a fact must have a reason in order for it to be considered as a ‘fact’. Empiricists believed that our view on the world develops entirely through our sense perceptions. Just like the glasses, because we have them on, yes our vision changes; however that does not mean the world is the way we see it.

In my opinion, I do agree with all three ideas of Rationalists, Empiricists and Kant.
I do believe that all things must happen for a reason, why do you think we have people like philosophers? They’re the ones trying to fill in the gaps of questions that may not have an explanation/reason to. Then from another look, I think the only way to fully understand something is to experience it. Take challenge week for an example. Sure, before the trip to Kenya, I was always told not to “waste water” and for resources, “use only what you need”. To be honest, I never really followed those rules, I would use excessive amount of toilet paper just to wipe my hands rather than using a towel and with water, left it running when washing my face. Then after Africa, visiting the school and what they had to cope with, it really got me to how precious the basic needs were and that I was really ‘throwing’ them away without thinking about it.
For Kant, I think that different environments will change the view through the ‘glasses’ according to who wears it. For instance, in the States, it is considered normal to wear miniskirts and wear outfits that show off your body, but in the Middle East, it is a law that every woman must be covered from head to toe, not exposing any skin to the public.

To conclude, I believe that wearing the “red-tinted glasses” does change our perception but only to an extent and that our views are mostly ‘influential’. We as individuals are all brought up differently, in methods and environment and those ways all play a big role in shaping our views on the world.

Assignment Numero Zwei Exploring the Philosophy of Sophie's Verden: The Chronicle Thoughts and Views of Miguel Magno. Volume II

Ok so here it goes. Again.

From Chapter 25 it shows yet another philosophy lesson/experinment between Sophie and her teacher, Alberto Knox. Knox gives Sophie a pair of red tinted glasses and with that she puts them on and sees the world around in red. No other colour showing but the different shades of red. This view of the world is very different to what she normally sees and thus forces her to challenge what she sees and shows her a different point of visual view. Maybe everything she sees isn’t as it seams? Knox shows us that everyone’s view of the world is different and is never the same. Everyone will always have a different idea or image in their head about everything which tells us that we must acknowledge these other ideas and not just stick to the ideas that we were raised to believe.

The fact that we must accept and acknowledge other people’s views is shown everyday, from having arguments, to having poem discussion in English. When it comes to poetry analysis it is very interesting as everyone has their own opinion and everyone is potentially right (except for a few people who are just stupid) and by doing this you can compare theories and create a better analysis. Without doing things like this we will all pretty much end up stupid and narrow minded. You can’t decide what is right and wrong or good and evil without knowing other peoples opinions.

This goes on in the chapter by talking about rationalists and empiricists. In my opinion and I think everyone would agree with me here being an empiricist just shows you to be ignorant and very up yourself, thinking whatever you say is right. People must get away from this type of thinking as it leads to nowhere and will also probably make you very unpopular with your friends. Rationalists are much more rational (as the name says) and consider other peoples views before taking judgment.

The metaphor of the glasses shows us that you need to take off your glasses to see the bigger picture because without doing so you see only one view. And in this case, red, seeing red the whole of your life is not only sad but very boring therefore you need to take off the glasses to enjoy and appreciate everything as a whole, seeing the big picture in all its glory. Things like your senses can limit you and with that there is always the chance to go further.

Red Tinted Glasses - Assignment 2

In chapter 25, Sophie puts on a pair of red tinted glasses, which made her vision to be in shades of red. It seemed that the glasses was limiting and filtering what Sophie was looking at. I think this is quite interesting; as a matter of fact people tend to see one thing but believe another. This goes back to what Kant said there are two types of people, Empiricists and Rationalists.

Empiricists are people who believe all knowledge comes from our experiences and senses. And Rationalists believe that knowledge is from reasoning and their minds.

I personally think knowledge comes from both experience and mind. However this may still be a pair of glasses, still affecting what we are seeing. Through the red tinted glasses experiment, Sophie cannot say the world is red, as Sophie knew she had the red tinted glasses on. Similarly we may say the world is what we see, but we may not be aware that we are wearing a pair of tinted glasses of our very own. In this case, these are the “glasses of reasoning”; we tend to filter what we see using our knowledge.

An example would be my grandma used to say if you were suffering from constipation, eating oily foods like fries and chicken wings would cure it. This is from her past experience, and it seems to have worked as many other elderly say so. I think this maybe a matter of their glasses of reasoning, when I consulted a Chinese medicine doctor; he seemed to have supported the point of eating oily foods. Where as western doctors did not approve of this, as they read from books that it was not a way of curing constipation, and through their medical knowledge it seemed ridiculous. This shows how what we have experienced and education has changed our perspectives towards issues. This also supports the point of people having their very own pair of tinted glasses, in which sometimes we may not even be aware of it being there.

In conclusion, with these “glasses of reasoning”, or what ever glasses that may change our perspective and filter what we see. We cannot find what is true or not, even if it seems true to one pair of glasses it might not seem right for another. Like red may not seed red in blue tinted glasses, as to red tinted glasses.

#2

In Chapter 25, Knox gives Sophie a pair of red tinted glasses and after she puts them on she finds herself in a world which is red. Sophie knows that as long as she wears the glasses then whatever she sees will be red tinted, however this does not mean that the whole world is tinted red because if she took off the glasses then she would see the world as she normally would. If you were to wear red tinted glasses, I will use the example in the book, and walk around in a forest, you would see red trees and red bark and red everything instead of the normal green you would expect, but who's to say that the leaves of the tree are not red? some leaves are a red colour in different times of the year. If you only ever saw trees with red leaves then the world behind the red glasses would not be as different as if you had always seen green leaves.
This means that our perception can and will usually be quiet different to another persons, This is also what makes our thinking unique.

This also relates to judging things that you see before you know more about it, for example, if you saw a person with a hood over his face and a scyth in his hand you would probably be pretty scared and images of the grim reaper (or death) will come to you however if you were to shine a light onto the face of the person and you see that it is actually made of straw and the scythe he is holding is actually just a pole with and extended branch at the top and he was actually a model of a monk outside a monastery, you would think nothing more about it and just walk on. So if you did not have the light and you saw the figure would you still walk on as casually as if you had seen the 'real' side of things? i think not.

Assignment 2

In Chapter 25, Sophie was given a pair of 'red-tinted glasses' from Knox, after she wore it, her view of the world has increased and changed. The aim of giving the glasses to Sophie was to make her 'SEE' the real world, this move was crucial because thinking back now, we have limited sense and knowledge, and others would have different thoughts because they might have been taught the different thing from us. Thoughts that were implanted into our minds affects with how we respond to things, like when someone say yellow, and for me, i would immediately think of a banana, because this was taught by my parents that banna is yellow. But others might be different, and their parents might teach them green relates to banna aswell because raw bananas are green in color. This is just the difference of different people's opinions and thoughts.

The thoughts of rationalism and empiricist can be applied to this, empiricist is the side where they blieve what is shown, while rationalism reasons what they see. What i think is that the 'glasses' is just an expression of letting us to have a wider view of things and not let the new things be blocked by our thoughts.

Assignment 2

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant').What's the meaning of it? How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses"metaphor/experiment.


In this chapter, Sophie comes across the world with a different point of view, not from thought, but from vision. Knox gives her a pair of 'red-tinted glasses' to wear, and there she has it- a world from a different point of view. Knox's aim was to show Sophie that not everything is really what it seems to be. Only with a pair of red glasses everything that looked normal once, started to look different. This tells us how we have limted senses, and how not everyone would think of something as we think of it. We only respond with the things that we were taught and that have been implanted into our minds, because that is what we started to believe and thought was true. It's just like a matter of opinions- not everyone's would be the same.

This is simply a case of comparing empiricists and rationalists. A rationalist is one who reasons what he sees and believes. An empiricist is the opposite- he believes what he is shown. On personal opinion, a rationalist seems more sensible. Would you believe what you see on television when they show you one actor stabbing another? Is that really what happened behind the screen? I don't think so.Basically, the 'glasses' we wear is the way in which we perceive things. If I say that the apple is red, you may think that it's light red. Our limitations as to how we perceive things blocks our mind from so many things we could've learnt due to our limited senses.

Assignment #2 "Red-tinted Glasses"

Assignment #2 “red-tinted glasses”

In chapter 25 “Kant”, the part where Sophie puts on a pair of red-tinted glasses, she then sees a whole lot of new things that she was not able to see before. To me, “red-tinted glasses” in a metaphor means you see the world a lot differently than you did before. It also means to me that sometimes we can the things using our very eyes, but probably because we have limited senses, we are not able to sense other things surrounding the object that you’re focusing on. To put it this way, if I see an apple is red, then would other living beings on this world also say that this apple is red? No, this is because our very eyes only see the apple is red through our eyes and our brain was taught that red is like an apple. Whereas if you ask a dog to see this apple, they would not say that its red and say its grey instead since their eyes can only see black an white. If our world was black and white, then the world to us will change dramatically.

Rationalism means that a person learns by reasoning, where as empiricism is saying the total opposite. It says that we can only believe in what we see. In my personal view, I think that rationalism is more convincing to me. This is because we see the object to believe that it is there, but in Sophie’s world, Knox gives Sophie a pair of “red-tinted glasses” so that she can see what things are there in front of Sophie’s eyes. But the problem is, you can’t touch the object, but you can only see the object. For this case, to me, I would be a rationalist. This is because even if we can see that the actual object is there, we cannot touch it or analysis that “yes it is there”
To put myself in an example, I would choose my glasses as an experiment. If I don’t have my glasses, I would definitely see the world very blurry with not enough detail for me to see the world properly. But to think deeply, if I don’t have my glasses, then I have another view of the world. I can see a whole lot of different things that other people are not able to see since my pair of eyes is different from theirs. If I put my glasses on, my world will become much more detailed and I can see properly. If I put the wrong pair of glasses on, I would then see other visions that I did not see before.

Assignment #2

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant').What's the meaning of it? How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses" metaphor/experiment.

The experiment “red-tinted glasses” used by Alberto Knox to show Sophie what we see can be very influential on how we view the world and how we see the world is limited by many things. In Alberto’s Experiment, Sophie’s view of the world is limited by the tinted glasses where everything she sees around her is in shades of red provided she puts them on. This tells us what Alberto is trying to show that both empiricists and rationalists both have some truth in their views although both are not entirely correct.

Rationalists believe that reasoning alone is the source of knowledge whereas empiricists believe that everything we learn is a result of senses like touch and seeing. By believing as a only a rationalist or empiricists we are limited into seeing only one side of everything for example, if we were to believe that men were better than women, then we would always view women as inferior. Rationalists would reason that since men are physically stronger and are more capable of manual labor better than women, it must be true that men are better than women. On the other hand, because of modern society, women are now seen as equal as men and are equally capable of doing everything men can do.
Kant saw validity in both of their views and believed that we obtain knowledge through both experiences and reason. Without either, one would not be able to know the complete truth and would have a restricted view of the world.

I personally agree with Kant that we have to rely on both experiences and reason to be able to have a better understanding of everything. Although we are not able to experience every single thing and our reasons might not always be correct we are able to trust what we have and create our own knowledge.

Assignment 2

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant').What's the meaning of it? How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses"metaphor/experiment.

The metaphor "Red-tinted glasses" implies that our views of the world can be different depending on our own experiences during life. It comes down to how each person look at things, how people take things in, personal perspective. Each person's perspective will change depending on several things, religious, communities and influences of friends and families.

An example of it will be people that are overweight. In some places, people discriminate people that are overweight, they mocks them, treated them differently compare to other people. These people are also human beings, they have the same rights as other people, its just because their sizes people treat them unfairly. However in some places, people are very keen to help those overweight people, they run courses that will help them to loose weight. All of them are human beings, it's just the way people experience things that make them treat people differently.

Another example will be the disable people. Often people look at them at a weird or unfriendly perspective, thinking that these disable people are less important in the world so they treat these disable people differently. In other's perspective, although disable people are slightly different in physically or mentally, but they are not useless in the world, they also have their own rights to live and say. They might even be smarter than the normal people in some ways, just because their actions, people treat them different. Therefore I think that this is really unfair for the disable people.

Personally I think that everyone's perspective will change as we experience more things. No one will have the same perspective throughout their life, although we can't control how other people's perspective about things, but we always can control our own. We can also make things a little brighter just by looking it in another angle. I think that my perspective can be affected by my surrounding, community and friends / families. Although my perspective can easily be changed, but I will always think and look before I actually take an action which hopefully won't hurt anyone or anything. I believe that this "red-tinted glasses" is only blinding us from the truth, protecting us from the reality of the world.

red-tinted glass assignment

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant').What's the meaning of it? How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses"metaphor/experiment.

This chapter of the novel is very interesting, as it describes the difference between what we sense, which is the raw truth, fact, which is provable or evident and what we understand, or percieve, rather, about what had been sensed. In life, as we grow, we learn, experience and watch to build our knowledge. An example of this, was demonstrated in this chapter, of the 'red-tinted glass' In this case, Sophie grew up and learnt that the world is colourful and brighter, which is why when she wore the red tinted glasses, that didn't change the way she felt about the world. Now, if she simply were to describe what she saw (which is the raw truth, what is evident) she would say "everything is RED. The world is red" but because she had grown up and learnt that the world actually isn't purely red, she was able to say, through experience "everything I see is red, but in reality, its not!"

In the same way, that is how life is. Everyone grows up and is taught to live certain ways of life. Some things are universal- like, for example, table manners or stealing is bad- and some may be cultural based- like in India when a young boy is to greet an adult, he has to touch his feet, to show respect, but that isn't necessary in other cultures. People may learn that stealing is bad through experience. They get punished for stealing something and this permanently engraves itself in that persons mind. In the future, if they were ever to face a similar situation, they wouldn't because they know it is wrong. If they experienced it and didn't get caught or punished, they would probably not have learnt stealing is wrong. So I believe learning and understanding is very important.

Many a times we smell smoke, or hear loud bangs and sense danger. So our sensations help us form perceptions. If we didn't have sensations at all, we wouldnt be able to percieve, learn or understand anything. So percieving and understanding isn't anything if it weren't for sensing them in the first place. In the case of the red tinted glass, if Sophie couldnt see at all, she would have never known that in those glasses the world was red, or that the world is colourful at all! to her everything would be black, so without her sensation, she wouldn't be able to understand or learn or experience what the world really looked like.
I must agree with Kant as he concluded that perception and sensation do play a major role in life, but only when they're together, will it teach you. Its much harder to get through life lacking a sensation, or knowledge, an understanding about something.

The world is seen through an imperfect pair of glasses

Have you ever tried to imagine a world that is perfect & flawless in every way possible? That doesn’t know the meaning of destruction, death, or discrimination? If such world exists, it exists in a vision that is clean, pure and pristine; it exists through the lenses of a perfect pair of glasses; it exists without cracks, bends or any else that might falter our vision even the slightest. The world would be a complete union of empiricism and rationalism, with our thoughts being a fusion of both human knowledge and our senses.

However, a world as such does not exist; we all do not look through the world from the same pair of polished glasses. We choose our own path in life, deciding what kind of lenses we want to perceive the world through. The question is: is this a good thing or a bad thing? Would you rather live in a perfect world, where everyone had the same opinion about everything? Or a world where thought and reason differed from person to person?

This extended metaphor no doubt created many new questions in my mind, along with the ones I had before. If Sophie looks through red-tinted glasses, she will see everything in ‘crimson…pink’, no matter where she is. These glasses ‘limit the way you perceive reality’- everything in Sophie’s world is limited to these colours when her glasses are on. But when someone else is seeing the same things she is, only with different coloured lenses, does that mean their reality isn’t the same as hers? Or is it the same, just perceived differently?

What Gaarder is really giving us is a union of the empiricists & rationalists; a fusion of their ideas; where the rationalists forgot about the ‘importance of experience’, the empiricists refused to let their minds influence them. A mix of these ideas creates a balanced and a very realistic view on how we see the world. Kant agrees with neither, but uses their fundamental ideas as the base of his own.

As we come into this world, one thing that we instantly notice is the fact that everyone is different; different in the way they look at the world. The very idea of having different perspectives is what creates the individuality in humans. It would frustrate me to no end if I wasn’t able to argue with anyone because they had an opinion that differed from mine. Going back to our faculty of wondering, would it even be possible to imagine or wonder if we all had fixed and universal viewpoints on everything? Wondering wouldn’t exist if we all looked at the world through the lenses of a perfect pair of glasses. We wouldn’t have an imagination; it would just be the same as everyone else’s.

If the world was indeed seen as flawless from an immaculate vision, then it would be the end of individuality.

Perception of the world - red-tinted glasses

The metaphor/experiment of the “red-tinted glasses” is used to explain Kant’s idea of how certain conditions in the human mind affect our conception of the world. Our sense perceptions provide us with our knowledge of the world. However, we are limited to the conclusions of the world which we arrive at with just our sense perceptions because our minds are innately functioned in a way that influences the way we apprehend the world.

Basically in the novel, the glasses limit Sophie from seeing the true colours of the world. The glasses are functioned to make everything look like the shades of red and if Sophie wore those glasses since the day she was born and never took them off, then she would be convinced that the world is actually coloured with the shades of red. In reality, the world as we know it is not the shades of red. The glasses apply a certain condition to our sensory perception which controls the way we see the world. This is precisely what our minds do.

The “red-tinted glasses” is a metaphor which compares it with the way our minds work. The fact that our minds have certain conditions, which influence how we experience the world, is innate, like the way the glasses influence how we see the world as being red from the moment you wear it. Rationalists and empiricists’ ideas are valid up to an extent in the meaning of this metaphor. The empiricists believed that our senses determined all our knowledge of the world and the rationalists believed that reason explained all of our knowledge. The question of whether the world is exactly as we perceive it, or it is the way it appears to our reason is answered through the metaphor. It points out that ‘sense’ and ‘reason’ were both important in our conception of the world and that there is no definite answer because we will never know how the world is really like if all we have is our senses. As the metaphor conveys, our senses or reasons are influenced by “decisive factors” in the human mind which determine how we perceive the world.

This question of perspective can be applied to the professional function of canon digital cameras, which is changing the colour of the actual object into any custom colour. If I take a photo of a standard HK taxi and change the red colour to white, and show it to somebody who knows nothing about HK then they would probably be convinced that taxis in HK are white. This is because they don’t have the true/real knowledge of taxis in HK (excluding the ability to research it) and they trust their sense perception of it being white.

In conclusion, we can conceive the world anyway we like through our senses and we rely on it so much that we unconsciously believe that what we sense is the reality of the world. However, Kant’s idea and the “red-tinted glasses” metaphor is there to confirm to us that our sense perceptions and reason may not be the reality and that it is not completely reliable when we want to discuss how the world is truly like. I feel that we have our sense perceptions and reasons in order to create the picture of the world we live in and it is the only perception we can depend on when thinking about the looks of the world.

Assignment 2 - Society Tinting our Glasses - Geoffrey Henes

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant').What's the meaning of it? How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses"metaphor/experiment.

The extended metaphor 'red-tinted glasses' shows that everyone has their own little way of seeing the world. For example, an optimistic person may see the world as a wonderful place, while a pessimistic person will only see the negative things about life, and block out the good stuff. People who look at things from many points of view will have 'rainbow coloured' glasses, while narrow minded people may have glasses of one colour. This means that people will never see the world as it truly is unless they 'take off' their 'glasses'. However, I don't think anyone can do that, as no-one in the world loves every single thing.

I feel that the term 'glasses' is inappropriate, because my point of view of something can change, which means that my glasses will be altered. However, real life glasses cannot change magically, they have to be replaced every time a change is needed. I feel a more flexible term than glasses is needed.

I am always interested in peoples opinions of different things. I am always asking what people think of that lesson, or that teacher. This shows me a different point of view, therefore a different tint. I also think babies are born with colourless glasses, but their lifestyle influences them to become tinted. For example, in Nazi Germany, young children were all trained to hate Jews and minorities, and a strong 'tint' like that can be very, very hard to change. I am just thankful that students in Hong Kong and most other countries today grow up so that they do no only have one colour on their glasses.

Assignment 2

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant').What's the meaning of it? (Hint: Consider what Sophie discovers about rationalists and empiricists along the way.) How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses"metaphor/experiment.

Albert knox uses this experiment as a form of portraying how insighful and how sophie would percieve the world, with different perspectives. Hence, the way in which any normal person would have interpreted this, is that everything seen through these glasses would be red, however nothing would loose its identitiy. However, a more deep person, and one with the ability to wonder (i.e. Sophie) would percieve it with many different identitities, and with diverse explanations as to why. The world is filtered through what is taken for granted, or just authoritively pushed in our sub-conscious. The world is filtered through our eyes, may the filter have different degrees , or types of filtering ( ego, conception, loss of questioning authorty etc).
The glasses symbolise metaphorically of how our interpretation of all is filtered, and perhaps loosing some truth. Sometmes we believe everything that we see, but eyes have an uncanny way of decepting or diverting our minds. These things dont loose identity, but it is distorted with the many other things that may shape realism. For example, when i watch television, my mind plays off the reactions of actors, when they feel sad, and things such as music, dark inuendos, camera shots all bias my mind to believing what they want me to believe. I loose the ability to have an identity, to believe what i want to believe with simple facts, and not bias. I believe that this is Sophies' way of communicating this. Is this loss of self in our control? can we manage it?

The red-tinted glasses metaphor

Albert Knox’s metaphor of this pair of glasses subtly opens Sophie’s and our eyes to the way humans perceive and “experience the world”, a thought that goes beyond our normal daily thinking.

From the novel, we see a clear contradiction between the empiricists and the rationalists. Empiricists strongly criticized the concept held by rationalists that humans have “innate ideas that exist in the mind prior to experience”. They believed that our perception of the world wholly comes from what we hear and see. Interestingly, Kant found a compromise between the two. He proposed that we are born with the “red-tinted glasses” of mere knowledge of “time and space” which shape our perception but meanwhile, it is our experience through senses, combined with our innate power of reason, which gives us the knowledge of the world.

I have come to agree with Kant. In my opinion, as we grow up and experience new and different things, our “glasses” of reason are modified to fit to our understanding gained from these experiences. And we go on wearing these modified glasses to view and comprehend new phenomena.

Looking at the world today, one can see the effect of stereotypes, formed from experiences in the society. Stereotypes are one aspect of our “red-tinted glasses” that prevent us from penetrating to the truth sometimes. For example, when we first encounter a black person, our stereotypes may force a snap judgement on us, leading us to perceive him/her as “lazy” and traits that correspond to this specific stereotype. Yet in most cases that is not the reality. As we come in contact with this person and let emotions dominate our so-called “reason” (stereotype), we can be shocked by the degree of contortion created by the “red-tinted glasses”. The society can easily distort our thought and mislead our judgement by shaping our “reason” for us if we are not aware of the danger. We therefore must learn to take off these glasses at times. In addition, the “red-tinted glasses” metaphor provides an allusion that in our life, not only our “vision” is limited, but also our other senses including “hearing” and “touch”, evoking my awareness to the power of our senses that give us the experience.

From this meaningful extended metaphor, I believe that we have to take our time to question and search for the mystery of the humans and the real world, with and then, without our “glasses”.

Assignment 2

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant').What's the meaning of it? (Hint: Consider what Sophie discovers about rationalists and empiricists along the way.) How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses"metaphor/experiment.

Albert Knox used the "red-tinted glasses" to show Sophie how each individual person has their own point of view and opinion on the world. She was asked to put on the red-tinted glasses, and when she did, everything seen from the glasses is red. By doing this experiment it can be explained to her how each individual has a limited point of view on the world. “The glasses limit the way you perceive reality,”, which means how each person decides to view the world by their own way, and how each person is different because of the limited knowledge each person has on the world. And due to this limit, some people's perspective on the world may be wrong, eg the red world created by the red-tinted glasses. This brings us to the next point: How each person sees the world differently. It is by the way s/he was brought up, the way s/he experienced the world and the surrounding and environment where s/he grew up in that affects how a person looks at the world.

The red-tinted glasses is also an example of both rationalism and empiricism. Rationalists believe knowledge comes from out mind (reasons) , while empiricists believe knowledge comes from our senses and our experiences of the world (what we see). Both affects the way a person look at the world, and sometimes even help over come the redness (wrong knowledge) of the red-tined glasses. Also by using the red tinted glasses, it shows that both groups are has limited knowledge by their own reasoning and boundaries. By using the red-tinted glasses, the effect of redness on a person can be clearly seen and be understood by Sophie and the reader.

Assignment #2 - Elise Tam

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant').What's the meaning of it? (Hint: Consider what Sophie discovers about rationalists and empiricists along the way.) How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses"metaphor/experiment.

The “red-tinted glasses” experiment/metaphor shows that each individual person will see the world differently because each person will have there own pair of “glasses”. These “glasses” is made from influences and experiences in our lives. This also means that because of these “glasses” there is a limitation to what we see and therefore we cannot see the world just by itself. The red-tinted glasses limits us to see only red.

Different upbringings will alter the “glasses” each person wears. For example, society has different view on boys and girls. So the glasses that a boy wears are different from girls. It is not appropriate for a boy to wear a skirt and looked down upon if a girl fights. They see the world differently.

When I think of the Rationalists and Empiricists, it makes me think that the red-tinted glasses mean something else. Rationalists are philosophers that believe that knowledge comes from the mind and reason. Empiricists are philosophers that believe knowledge is from our senses. The red-tinted glasses could also mean that to perceive the world you need to have reason and senses. The perception of red is the information from our senses which tells us everything is red. However, we know that the world is not just red, so our reason tells us it is not.

This makes me think which one comes first, reason or senses. Without senses, we will not have any reason as reason is based on senses but our senses are matched with our reason to see if it is acceptable and accurate. It is like the dilemma of which coming first, chicken or the egg.

Assignment 2 - Hiral Shah - what we see vs. how we see it

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant'). What's the meaning of it? (Hint: Consider what Sophie discovers about rationalists and empiricists along the way.) How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses" metaphor/experiment.

To establish his point, or rather that of Kant, Alberto performs an experiment where he tells Sophie to put on a pair “red-tinted glasses”, and then explain to him what she sees. The obvious response is that she sees exactly what she saw before she put on the glasses; the only difference being that everything was red. Alberto explains that these “red-tinted glasses” limit our way of perceiving reality; what we see is a part of the world around us, but how we see it is affected by anything filtering our vision. Evidently, we “cannot say the world is red”, even though we “conceive it as being so”; that we see things in “pink” or “crimson” does not mean that it is in fact pink or crimson.

The “glasses” we wear is a metaphor to describe the way as to how we limit ourselves to perceive reality. From as early as our first day on the earth, our way of thinking is moulded by our education and surroundings: this is partially what divides people of different ethnic backgrounds, sexes, and financial status. The different upbringing of different people is why we all perceive different situations in a different manner. The “glasses” we wear contributes to our individuality.

I personally agree with Kant regarding what he thought about the difference between “the thing in itself” and “the thing for me”. For instance, when dogs bark, we conceive it to be nonsensical sound waves coming out of a dog. For all we know, dogs might be able to communicate with each other via barking. Our perception of reality blocks our mind from being able to comprehend what a dog is trying to say.

Hiral Shah

Assignment #2

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant'). What's the meaning of it? How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses" metaphor/experiment.

The metaphor "red-tinted glasses" shows that our views of the world differ depending on our experiences. It all comes down to personal perspective, how we see things, how we interpret them. However, this perspective can easily be "bent" due to our communities, our beliefs, our families and friends.

An example would be people with disabilities, most people tend to look to them as inferior people, people who are of less importance than us regular people. This leads to discrimination, where they are treated differently because they are seen as a different group of people. This not only goes for people with disabilities, but also goes for Blacks. Racists all around the world classify them as subnormals and don't treat them normally. The thought of people being treated in a diverse manner because they are "different" from us is disturbing. I don't see how them being different gives us the right to mock them, treat them differently. If we are given the right, why aren't they? From their eyes we are also seen as different, why don't they treat us they way they treat us? Yes, some of them do, but only because the "normal" people discriminate them first.

Rationalists believe that knowledge comes from reason, from within our minds. Everything that we acknowledge must have a sense of reason within it in order for it to be "correct". This could also be true as things without a reason don't make "sense" to some of us in the world. There has to be a reason behind everything or it becomes idealistic.

Empiricists believe that knowledge about the world comes from our senses and experiences of the world itself. In a way this is true because if we put on our "red-tinted" glasses, our views of the world might have changed, but the way we see the world doesn't mean that the world is the way we see it.

I believe that the way both Rationalists and Empiricists think are true. For myself, I believe that everything must have a reason behind it, or it doesn't work and bugs me constantly. If I was told something and a reason was not given for it, I would try to think of a reason for it, a logical one so that my brain can "process" it and "approve" it. I also believe that our perspective can be bent because of our senses and experiences of the world. My thoughts towards things are easily affected by things around me; my communitiy (friends / family), school and my own religious belief. This then leads me to wonder why I think things as they are. The fundemental question: why. However, I believe that this "red-tinted glasses" is only blinding us from the truth, protecting us from the realities of this world.

- Kevin -_-''

assignment 2

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant').What's the meaning of it? (Hint: Consider what Sophie discovers about rationalists and empiricists along the way.) How do these questions ofperspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses"metaphor/experiment.

The red tinted glasses experiment was used to show readers that everyone has their own perception and interpretation of the world. it is through experience and social norms which helps build our own 'glasses'. the 'redness' of the glasses represents our perception of the world and although it affects how we see the world it can however be overcome by our senses and knowledge. When Sophie puts on those glasses, theworld becomes red but she knows better that the world isnt red.

The red tinted glasses is an example of both rationalism and empiricism in the way that it shows how senses and perception affects how we see the world and how innate knowledge helps us overcome the affects of the 'redness' and helps us process information we receive through the glasses.

Assignment 2 - Red Tinted Glasses

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant'). What's the meaning of it? How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses" metaphor/experiment.

Alberto Knox used the ‘red-tinted glasses’ metaphor to show Sophie that people’s view of the world is affected by the experiences and the way the think and perceive the world. During the childhood of any person, they begin to acquire memories and it is with those memories with which they shape into a pair of glasses through which they view the world. For example if a child was bitten and chased by a dog, they would learn to see dogs as something evil and dangerous. In this example the child has formed a ‘dogs are bad’ glasses for him to see the world in.

In chapter 25 of Sophie’s World, we can see that Sophie during the period that Sophie had her glasses on that everything she could see with her eyes had a reddish tinge to it, once she takes it off her vision returns to normal. This experiment leads Sophie to realize that we see the world as it is from our own perspective and values. This experiment however also hints at the weakness and the flaws of the way the Empiricists think as the red tinted glasses have altered the way Sophie perceives the world yet her (Rationalist) thinking reasons that her senses are only clouded because she is seeing the world she has associated with through her experiences. Another fault of thinking with our experiences and senses is that we ourselves only have limited senses, we humans are only able to hear, feel, see, smell and taste. It is because of our senses and the receptors of these senses that we are limited in our ability to perceive the world, we can only see and understand our 3 dimension along with time, although it is not said in the book I would think that the rim of the glasses would be a metaphor for the edge and the limit that can be perceived with just our senses. Thinking with just logic and reason does have its disadvantages as well. The human mind is limited in its complexity, we cannot understand or reason with things we have never known about, nor can we think about things on a scale far greater than anything we have associated ourselves with.

In this chapter we are explained the thought that Kant put into merging the two contrasting way of thinking from the Rationalists and Empiricists. The former uses logic and reason to see the world as it is, with the latter basing the world and how it appears to us with the five senses of our body and our experience with it. I think what Alberto is trying to say is that Kant understood that both ways of thinking had their own points yet also had faults. We realize that neither reason nor thought is the correct way to see the world, hence parts of both ways of thinking should be taken into account of.

In conclusion, Kant’s story is meant to tell us how there is more than one way of perceiving the world, instead we can perceive the world in at least two or more ways. This is hinted by the usage of glasses instead of a monocle. By having more than one way of seeing the world we are in we can see things with a much more easily a clearer picture. Using the example of the pitcher and water, by just limiting our way of thinking to one narrow path we have to try and see the world in the moving water, with a pitcher containing the water we can easily examine the water. By looking at the world from two different view points, decisions about what we see can be perceived easily this is in a way similar to how we use our pair of eyes to judge distance.

Alberto Knox uses the "red tinted glasses" metaphor to illustrate to Sophie how everybody perceives things differently, because our environment alters our judgement. Kant did not fully agree with either the rationalists or the empiricists. Rationalism is the belief that knowledge comes from our mind, and empiricism is the belief that knowledge is acquired from our senses.

Kant combined these two theories and he made a distinction between the thing itself and the thing “for me”. Kant believed that there are clear restrictions to what we know simply because our “red tinted glasses” stop us from seeing what is really there.

I agree with Kant because I think our surroundings alter the way we see things. What we believe to be right and wrong are usually constructs of the society that we live in. An example of this is that a Hindu raised in a Hindu society would believe that eating beef is wrong, because the Hindu society has shaped their mind to believe that. However, a non-Hindu would have no problem eating beef, as they would have been raised in a society where eating beef is acceptable.

Our senses can be mislead by many things, including our religion, cultural background, family, childhood and education, which means that everyone potentially has a different view of the world. This means that because of our surroundings, we can never see the world for what it really is.

To conclude, I believe that the “red tinted glasses” is a metaphor to show our limitations of portraying the world. We all wear different glasses and so in a way we create our own reality.

Sense & Reasoning. We need both of these.

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant'). What's the meaning of it? (Hint: Consider what Sophie discovers about rationalists and empiricists along the way.) How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses" metaphor/experiment.

In the Chapter ‘Kant’, Sophie was asked to put on a pair of ‘red-tinted glasses’. When she did so, everything that she saw appeared to be in different shades of red. The dark bits became crimson, and the pale bits became pink. The ‘red-tinted glasses’ makes everything seem red because it filters all colours of light, the colours in a spectrum, except for red. In my opinion, the ‘red-tinted glasses’ metaphor shows how each individual’s views may vary from one another, and that people’s views tend to be biased because of the filters.

I believe that everyone is born with a pair of ‘colourless glasses’ and as we grow up those ‘colourless glasses’ gain colour. They limit our perception of the world. There are countless factors that decide what colour the glasses turn into, such as our upbringing, environment, experiences, education, and etc. For example, if a child had been bitten by a dog at an early age, he/she may grow up with a fear of dogs. If one was brought up in an environment where eating meat was wrong, he/she would not eat meat. On the other hand, in European countries, many would not be born in an environment where eating meat was wrong. So they would show no hesitation eating meat.

This ‘theory of the red-tinted glasses’ makes me agree with Kant’s view, that to fully understand the world, we need both experience and reason, not just experience or just reason, as the empiricists or rationalists may say. In our everyday life we naturally use both sense and reason to understand our experiences. For example, on page 326, Alberto Knox talks about pouring water into a glass pitcher. We could apply this to Kant’s view. The water, which is ‘the material of our knowledge that comes to us through our senses’, adapts itself to the shape of the pitcher- this is understood by our reasoning. This would not make sense if we tried to get to the point using only our senses or reason.

The red tinted glasses are a metaphor to explain to Sophie how people view the world and how it might be limited by something simple like the pair of glasses. It is also another way to show how Kant does not agree with the empiricists or the rationalists.

Alberto Knox experiments with Sophie in chapter 25 to show her that when she puts the glasses on, she will only see everything in the shade of red. This prevents her from seeing everything in their real colour and limits the way she perceives everything. I believe that from the very beginning, everyone saw everything in the same way but as we matured, the colours of the world we see also matured. This is mainly due to the fact that most of us are brought up in different environments with different experiences and social norms.

Empiricsim and rationalism also have a big influence as both empiricists and rationalists believe different things, one believing that knowledge comes from our mind as the other believes that it is from our senses.

Even though some people may see the world in the same colour, it is difficult to say that they see everything as the exact same as they never experience or were brought up in exactly the same way. This could also happen vice versa when people do not get along as they might have different colour lenses.

It is always a wonder to see what the real world is. Is there a right way to view it despite the fact that we have different colour lenses? Or is the way we percieve it now the way we learn to believe is the right way?

Red- tinted Glasses

In my opinion I believe that the “red tinted glasses” experiment was used in the book to illustrate how Kant’s beliefs about the empiricists merged together with the rationalists views to form a more realistic understanding of how our bodies perceive things differently.

It shows how although the glasses are just red filters, they block out the other colours, which can also represent how different people block out contributing factors when they perceive the world. For example it depends how someone reacts to a situation and whether what they accept is visible to them or blocked out. This can work in the opposite direction as that of which concerns someone can to be visible or denied.

The glasses also show us that due to different religions, childhoods, relationships and education people can have certain limitation to how they perceive the world. For example everyone is capable of perceiving the world in their own unique way, however this does not mean that they are seeing the world for what it really is.

My final area of exploration is the difference between what the rationalists and empiricists believed in. The glasses represent a different perception which is indeed what both these groups of people had. Our senses can be deceived by certain limitations and values, similarly our mind can also be mislead to believe certain morals and expectations.

In conclusion I believe that the glasses represent the conditions in which effect someone’s metal and sensory response to situations. Mental perceptions can be varied and determined due to different upbringings and education, however your senses represent different moral values and religious views, which in turn influence the way your mind functions.

Assignment 2

In chapter 25, the red tinted glasses is a metaphor used to describe how ones 'vision' or views of the world and the universe may be made limited by a tool of restraint (which I believe is a metaphor for "influence").

In 'Sophie's World' Alberto Knox explains to Sophie that if she puts on the glasses everything she sees will be in a shade of red, preventing her from seeing things in their 'true' colour. This example is used to show how as individuals we see the same physical things in different ways to other individuals, due to the way we were brought up and the things we have experienced as well as our origins. In other words, we all see things in a different 'colour' because the colour of the tint in our 'glasses' are uniquely different from one another.

Personally, I believe that we are all born with perfectly clear lenses which have fogged up into a particular shade of colour as we have developed into maturity. Each colour being a mixture of the colours corresponding with the influence received from the amount of Rationalism and Empiricism. Some people see eye to eye as they have glasses of a similar tint, but never an identical tint, as we never experience the exact same things in the exact same way as others. Some people never get along because their 'lens colours' are so different.

For example, if Person A had a 'yellow' tinted perspective of all things, because he had yellow tinted 'glasses' and saw a clean, blank, pure white piece of paper. He would see the piece of paper as a yellow coloured paper. If Person B came along and had a 'green' perspective of things, he would see that very same piece of paper in a green colour. Thus, if both persons shared their views on what colour they believed the piece of paper was, they would disagree. This ideology of perspective is what causes agreements and disagreements in our world today, and in a larger scale, peace and war.

Tinted Glasses

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant'). What's the meaning of it? (Hint: Consider what Sophie discovers about rationalists and empiricists along the way.) How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses" metaphor/experiment.

In the book, the red tinted glasses is a metaphor to emphasize that our source of knowledge is in a way, innate (existing in one from birth; inborn; native) and that it also depends greatly on the in what culture, community and family we are raised in. For example, in middle-eastern cultures (especially in Muslim countries), polygamy is a right thing. However, other countries in the world (those with western cultures) will see it as a bad thing because we are taught by the community around us that it is wrong. Rationalism and Empiricism are philosophical doctrines which explains how we comprehend knowledge and our perspectives to it.

Rationalists argues that knowledge come from intuition (direct perception of the truth; without any experience) and Empiricists argues that knowledge come from experience. However, Kant argued that our understanding in the world around us is not only through intuitions, but experience (different concepts) and intuitions. This supports the belief that on what I said earlier about the comprehension of knowledge.

Immanuel Kant quoted, "Intuitions without concepts are blind, concepts without intuitions are empty".
This basically means that you cannot grasp the truth without using both experience and intuition.

Each person have a different perspective on different things, as I said earlier, different perspectives comes from different cultures , communites and families. This is because of the different ways we comprehend knowledge and where it sources from, it leads to mistakes, hatred, stereotypes, racism and sexism etc. I believe so because I use to believe that yakult is bad for your health because it contains bacteria; but then it turns out it is a bacteria good for your health. I made this mistakes is because my childhood self believed that bacterias only does harm and nothing else, to the body (sickness etc). After this incident it made me realise that everything must be viewed from different concepts.

Assignment 2

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in 'Kant'. What is the meaning of it? How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses" metaphor/experiment.

In Chapter 25, Alberto Knox presents Sophie with a pair of red tinted glasses in order to clarify about Kant’s philosophy. During the experiment of the red tinted glasses, we understand how the colour red deceives Sophie’s sense and causes her eyes to believe that the world around her is red. The reason for this is that the glasses she wears limits the way she perceives the world and reality as it only alters how a single individual sees it. This explains the disparity between perception and reason and is also a method of telling us why Kant does not agree with the empiricists or the rationalists. What we perceive from our senses can be wrong due to limits, like the red colour of the glasses.

The rationalists who believe that the basis of human knowledge comes from our mind as ‘reason is a primary source of knowledge’, and that one forms knowledge and opinion by relying upon reason alone. On the other hand, empiricists believed that pure reasoning alone is not sufficient to obtain knowledge, but experience is also required, and that that all knowledge of the world comes from our senses and experience of the world. This can be proven to be false through the example of the “red-tinted glasses”. In this experiment, we are seeing the same world but now different through our eyes from without the glasses. We are capable of observe the world in many different ways, but that does not necessarily mean the world is as we see it.

From what I believe, our mind and feeling takes an important position when we see things around us as it determines what we actually see. I believe the way in which we perceive everything around us also incorporates the mind and our feelings. These two issue influences the way we see things as each and every one of us are different and experience different things through the process of life. Every one of us thinks in a unique approach as we all wear a personal pair of ‘glasses’.

In conclusion, I consider the metaphor of the “red-tinted glasses” just portrays the many different ways in which we perceive the world. Without either reasoning or experience human beings will not have the same views as each person would have a different pair of 'glasses' in which to view at certain thing. Both perception and senses should not be relied on as when one is to be left alone, we would be coming up with misleading conclusions and answers.

TOK # 2

In the reading of Chapter 25 a pair of red tinted glasses is introduced to help us define the understanding of Kant’s philosophy. Substantially, the view and perspective perceived differs. The red tinted glasses seem to be used as a metaphor to describe the made up individuals. It is portrayed that the view becomes red and limits the outlook and observation of the seen imagery. In order to branch out ideas and outlooks, it is up to us, to gradually change, and our opinions and ideas will slowly show a wider range of ideas and ‘colors’ per say. The meaning of having red tinted glasses is showing the limitations that may bring against oneself, and the acceptance of others. The consideration of having the world’s eye view being restricted is a downbeat. The intentional discrimination against race, sex, age, religion, or traditions would truly be disastrous. The truth is that we all should accept the conditions towards others widely, not just through penalized answers or questioning. What needs to be done is to look upon our experiences, widen our conception and the outlook will not be as limited as the red tinted glasses. Wearing these glasses, had modified opinions and enhanced stereotypes. What would the world simply be if the colors were to be the same? It is the alteration that shows individuality, and senses. To an extent, the glasses will have a benefit. How so? To understand one person’s idea and viewpoint, the glasses will allow the opposite to view the perspective of others, and hopefully, come to their own conclusions. This is also related to the present of being ‘put in someone’s shoes’. Certainly, the proper thing to do is to comprehend and be aware of the other’s ideas and not critic others’ views. Hence knowing the others judgment, it would be surely erroneous if more verdicts were made. Evidentially, the experiment of Kant’s shows the opinions of rationalists and the empiricist. In agreement with Kant, knowledge is gained from sensations, factors of decision, and determination of the outlook. The red tinted glasses are just one way of seeing the whole around us, without them, limitations would be unrestrained. Sophie’s world has been oblivious among the creation of the inside and outside. With a single narrow path, it becomes exigent to see beyond the pink crimson. In order to perceive things, this comes along with experience. This is the guidance of cherishment and comprehension. In comparison, a new student were to enter the school, it becomes apparent that judgments will be made not in favor of. But is it wrong to critique one another, not for one self? It is apparent that one does what they shall do, with reasoning. And surely, if the red tinted glasses were put on, the reason would appear applicable. In conclusion, the red tinted glasses are one way of opening our sensual mind and theory of life. It is important to show personal opinions and share these thoughts before being a judge worthy person. Once new ideas and consultations are developed, it becomes natural to improve on attitudes towards others and the world. Though there may be influence upon others, it is our own perception which makes us individuals.

If a baby was born with an inbuilt pair of red tinted glasses, will he accept the fact that an apple can be green?

... Will he even understand what on earth you are talking about?

Actually, how do we know that the world we see is supposed to be colorful? We are assuming that a ‘colored vision’ is normal just because the majority of the population is born with it. If we stop considering ourselves a superior race, maybe, just maybe, the world is suppose to be black and white (according to dogs)? Maybe the tinted glasses do help us see the truth? Maybe the “limited vision” is the truth? It is all really confusing but… how do we know that color-blind people are not the ‘normal ones’? Black and white vision might be the truth according to many species of animals. After all, we might be limiting our vision by labeling blood ‘red’ and the sky ‘blue’. Just for the record, blood itself can be crimson, maroon, scarlet, vermilion, madder… (lets not talk about the sky) and no, they are not the same color.

The ‘Red-tinted glasses experiment’ carried out by Alberto Knox proves how we can “limit” the way we “perceive” things.

Throughout the book, Knox has constantly been challenging Sophie to think outside the box and explore the limits. Well, in order for us to view the whole picture, we must put on our rational pair of glasses as well as our empirical pair. We can relate this theory to those glasses we put on when watching a 3-D movie. If we cover one side, all we get is the world in one color. But if we use both lenses, we get a 3-D image. Let’s just say that the red side represents sense and the blue side represents reasoning. We need a balance in order to make judgments accurately and accordingly (well, to ourselves at least). One might be a 9-year old genius who completed a math degree at the best math school in the world, yet who still struggles to make friends. Balance.

There is always more than one way to see the world. We cannot be dead-on empiricist or rationalist. Imagine two people, one on each side of a room. In the middle of the room, lies a box. One side of a box is black while the other side is white. Naturally, when we ask these two people ‘what color is the box?’ the answer will not be correct. This, is limiting our vision. This, is shielding areas of our world and restricting our way to “perceive” it.

In a way, I think all of us are born with colorless glasses, perfect glasses. Through our maturation, these glasses start ‘tinting’. Both sides do not have to tone proportionally (for example, scientists and doctors might have a more opaque blue side (with their jobs resorting to reasoning)). These glasses we have on make us who we are. Although they are formed by our personal experience and knowledge, they do filter out parts of the reality we choose not to accept. From believing that ‘blondes are dumb’ to believing that ‘asians have slanted eyes’ to being a Nazi to being optimistic… all are still sifting out and recreating our own realism.

We can change sense or reasoning. We create our reality. Though it might not be correct, Rationalists, Empiricists, it is our choice.

Pre-ToK Assignment #2: Response by Xiang Ding

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant'). What's the meaning of it? How do these questions of perspective apply to your own life? Use examples from the novel and your life to illustrate your understanding of the "red-tinted glasses" metaphor/experiment.

(above: Immanuel Kant)

In Chapter 25, Alberto uses the red-tinted glasses as a way of explaining to Sophie about the interrelationship between perception and reason. It is a way of telling us why Kant agrees with neither the empiricists nor the rationalists.

Empiricists believed that all knowledge of the world comes from our senses and our experience of the world. This is shown not to be true since if we put on the red-tinted glasses, we are still seeing the same world, but which is now different to us from without the glasses. We see the world in the way we see it, but that does not mean the world is as we see it.

Rationalists believed that the basis of human knowledge come from our mind. Without outside stimulus coming from our senses, there is no such thing as knowledge. Reason has to be applied to what we sense, but without our senses, there is nothing to reason.

I have always wondered about what the real world looks like. This line of thought is similiar to what we learnt in Religious Studies in Year 9 (visiting the Matrix). What is the table in front of me? If I was an alien species would I see something different in front of me in place of the table, for example - empty space? Is there a sixth sense, seventh sense which could give us entirely different perceptions of the world? There probably are. In this way, I believe our knowledge of the world before us is limited by our senses, whereas there is no limit to our reason since inteligence or potential inteligence is infinite (e.g. supercomputers).

Kant is a great philosopher and his thinking has drastically influenced and affected life in the 18th Century. There is much to learn from Kant.

Xiang Ding N1

A broken pair of glasses reflects more sense and reason than a perfect pair does.

Imagine a world with a clear division between right and wrong, good and bad. Imagine a world where every single inhabitants, regardless of his/her nationality, culture, religion, gender, age views all aspects of the world with identical judgment. Just imagine. If that very model of a world did indeed exist, everything would be crystal clear and we would all find ourselves looking at the world through a flawlessly immaculate, transparent and thoroughly polished lens- no spots, no cracks to alter our vision even slightly. We would just simply accept what we sense, and apply that sensory experience to our reason for future occasions. Our empirical and rational outlooks will be one and the same.

Sadly, (or is it thankfully?) we do not live in a world where all of us can look at life through the same pair of glasses. Instead, we are in a world where we can “determine how we perceive the world around us”, thus decide what type of glasses we observe the world through. This is where Gaarder’s extended metaphor of the “red-tinted glasses” comes into the picture. The red colour of the lenses represents one of the millions of different ways to absorb the surrounding, and on the bigger picture, the limitation to the way in which one perceives reality. The frames that form rectangular screens across Sophie’s vision do not reveal the world in multi-colour, but instead, filter only the colour of red into her eyes. For as long as Sophie remains wearing the red-tinted glasses, she will be oblivious of the world in other colours; her life only restricted to the “pink…crimson” view before her lenses, leaving her fully unaware of the world in any other colours besides red.

Keeping Sophie and the red-tinted glass experiment in mind, let us add to the scenario a baby with blue-tinted glasses on. If Sophie and the baby were both to be placed in a beach, they will equally experience the same landscape. However, their perceptions of the view before their eyes will greatly differ. The red and blue coloured lenses symbolise the dissimilar “conditions governing [their] mind’s operation”. As an explanation to this, Kant believes that “perceiving things in time and space… precedes every experience”. This conveys that whatever we observe through our senses amends to our inherent reason of time and space. Because Sophie’s consistent experience tells her that the world is not red, she goes against what her empirical shows her. Contrastingly, the baby will perceive the world as it is in the colour blue- the baby’s lack of sensual experience easily breaks through the wall of innate reason and fills in the baby’s form of time and space, thus the baby will always see the world through the blue filter and create his own idea of the world.

The red-tinted glasses metaphor was a challenging conundrum to unfold, but it sure was worth the effort. The metaphor takes two extreme sides of the rationalists and the empiricists, and merges them together to form a single moderate and credible proposal. By comparing human perspectives to coloured glasses, Gaarder perfectly illustrates the idea of people absorbing and judging the world in their own individual ways. It is quite frustrating to imagine myself with a pair of glasses that influences everything I see, and my friends with a different pair. But then again, isn’t this very idea of having different perspectives the reason to personal opinions and beliefs? Personally, I would very much rather prefer a world of assorted outlooks and judgments than a world of fixed and universal viewpoint to everything. Different opinions are the key roots to inspirations and development of thoughts. What will become of the world with no diverse ideas to compare with and contrast from?

Individual red, blue, spotty, sparkly glasses are much more appealing than universally shared crystal clear glasses. A broken pair of glasses reflects more sense and reason than a perfect pair does. However, it would be a waste of our perspectives to keep our own views of the world private. We should swap our glasses from time to time, and get to know what the world is like not only “for me”, but also for you, for her, for him, for them and for us- even if that means not knowing what the world is like “in itself”.

Assignment II: Mind Over Matter

I think that the Red Tinted Glasses experiment used by Alberto Knox in Chapter 25 shows Knox’s disagreement with empiricists and his support of the rationalist ideas. The glasses prove that it is possible to ‘limit the way you perceive reality’ by distorting the information collected by the senses, thus showing the flaws of the empiricists’ thinking. Although her senses have been fooled, Sophie still realizes that she sees ‘exactly the same as before, except that it’s all red.’ Sophie’s reasoning and experience is able to properly interpret the altered sensory image and understand that, although the image has changed, the thing itself has not. Her ability to use reasoning to find the truth supports the idea that the mind is more reliable than the senses.

I find myself agreeing with Kant’s view; that sensing and reason cannot exist without one another and that they both play an important part in our understanding of our world. There is no point in neglecting your senses and only using your reasoning to understand the world since there would be no new sensory information or experiences to further develop your ability to reason. Similarly, there is no point in collecting masses of information through the senses without the proper analysis and interpretation of reasoning, as this mass of information would be useless. This point is illustrated in page 326, where the water (sensory information) is shaped by the pitcher (reasoning) to produce a complete understanding and interpretation. Without the pitcher, it would all be a big mess. Without the water, there is no point of the pitcher existing.

However, I feel that the mind and its ability to reason is more important than sensory information. It is our individual and unique minds that ultimately change our sensory information into something understandable. We are able to use our reasoning to find the truth even though our sensory information is altered. Although our reasoning can be influenced by factors such as morals, bias and emotions, it is the best and only way we can understand our world in spite of the red tinted glasses that inhibit our senses.

kent's theory= it depends on the subject X3

From the book, it seems to analyze that the red tinted glasses as the example of Kent’s theory to describe perspective view of the world by using the sense (look) and the reason (knowledge), combined together. i am confused if Kent's theory actually fits to whole lot, it seems to depend on the subject. Only people with great amount of knowledge and experiences actually suit Kent's theory.

It's like when a thirteen year old boy wears this special glasses, even though, he sees the actual view in front of him in red, he however rejects the fact the whole view as "red". He actually knows that the world is not "red". It suits very well with Kent's theory.

However, if an animal or a baby wore these red glasses, how would it react? Would it actually acknowledge that the world is actually not red? I would like to say, I am slight unsure, but they would probably accept that the world is red. Even though I am not sure of an animal but the baby would probably look amused and also maybe clap by seeing something different and as time passes by it decides see the world as red.

When it refers to an animal wearing a pair of red tinted glasses seems to be similar to the example of a horse wearing the bridle, which covers both sides of its head.

A horse, wears a bridle. It could only see the front. Even though there are fresh crops by the side it cannot recognize that it is there. Then suddenly, the carrot is put in the front and this horse especially Luvs carrots. Would it think of the reason of a random carrot suddenly standing in front of it? It would actually not think about it, it would only think about the food, its sight is the only one which is fully concentrated on the horse. It would definitely run for it until it gets the carrot.

Even though, baby is a human, still it doesn't have great amount of knowledge and experience.
A baby, only few months old, not capable enough to walk is forced to walk. At the first time as it's suddenly forced to do it, I am sure, It will start crying like mad. However as time passes by, it will just accept it and begins to walk and learn later that this is one of the knowledge. It
now sees for the first time, itself standing. The babies seem to be the usual ones, which begin
to absorb on using the mixture of look and reason, but not as Kent's theory.

So, yup. Kent's theory is not fully acceptable; even though Kent's theory on the combo of sensation and reason is a great idea and suits exactly to the people with knowledge and experiences however, it doesn't get along with other living species other than them.

Seeing through the colored glass

In Chapter 25, Sophie learns about Kant’s philosophy by putting the ‘red-tinted glasses’ on. So what IS the meaning of the extended metaphor and HOW do these questions of perspective apply to my own life? In my perspective (through my own pair of glasses), I see the extended metaphor differently to how Gaarder has put it. I see it as a pair of red-blue tinted 3D glasses, exactly like the one shown in the prompt. Assuming that the empiricists are blue and the rationalists are red, we need both sides to balance out or else the pair of 3D glasses would not be complete. For example, if you go in one of the 3-D cinemas, it is necessary to put on a pair of those 3-D glasses, if not, you would not be able to see the full picture (as shown in the picture where blue rays pass through the red lens and vice versa). My interpretation is that we are already born with one pair of the red-blue tinted 3D glasses.

In literal sense, glasses serve to correct distortions of physical eyesight, badly made or wrongly prescribed glasses will cause their own distortions thus it can affect an individual’s perception of the world. In this case, however, we are already born with a pair of glasses and we continue to put on more pairs as we grow up. The pair that we are born with already contains both the red and the blue (empiricist and rationalist view) except at different shades. These imbalances of the shades mean that we either have too much reasoning or rely too much on our senses. This would in turn create bias views and lead to issues. The red glasses are an example of how our perceptions are influenced by conditions governing the mind’s processing of experience. This links back to the previous assignment where as we grow up, we experience more, therefore we ‘seem’ to wonder less and here, we ‘seem’ to view the world differently throughout our lives with more pairs of glasses.

Many argue that the glasses “limit the way you perceive the reality” and by “taking them off”, you will be able to see the reality clearly. But according to what I think, we are born with a pair of glasses (regardless of the lens, frame, shade, curvature, etc because it varies from person to person) within us and it cannot be taken off. A common idiom ‘rose tinted glass’ applies very much to myself, this means that all the negative factors/ view of the world is filtered and taken out, with only the pleasant parts left. The color of the shades is mainly based on our experience and how we want to perceive the world. In order to view the reality, more and more shaded glasses must be put on so that we can increase the color range until we see white light – a color that does not affect our perception of the world at all.

How we see the world is partly determined by the glasses we are wearing, but also by mental preconceptions. We cannot say that the world is red even though temporarily, everything is red. Kant thought that both rationalists “Descartes and Spinoza” and empiricists “Locke, Berkeley and Hume” were “both partly wrong and right”. Rationalists believed that the basis for all human knowledge could be found in mind whilst empiricist believed all knowledge of the world came from our senses. This relates back to my psychology knowledge where I have learnt the difference between ‘sensation’ - the physical stimulation of sensory receptors and ‘perception’ - interpreting, organizing and elaborating sensory information. Kant believed that certain factors in our mind influence our experience of the world. We perceive everything as occurring in time and space and these are innate characteristics of the human mind. Kant divides the world into things as they are in themselves and as we perceive them. We cannot know things as they are in themselves, but we can know how to perceive them.

To conclude, I believe that the “red tinted glasses” does change our perception slightly but I disagree to the fact that it “limits the way” we perceive reality. We will eventually wear the pair of red glasses at one point in our life. It is essential that we understand Kant’s theory where he took in the empiricists view, the rationalists view and other external factors. No matter what or how many glasses we are wearing, we must be aware of what really is happening around us and do not bias our views of reality as it may lead to severe world consequences such as stereotypes and racism.