Assignment 2: "Red tinted glasses"

“Red tinted glasses” a metaphor used to describe the way we perceive the world. It limits our way of seeing but it doesn’t prevent us from using our ‘senses’ to see things.

The two main groups mentioned in this chapter, the rationalists and the empiricists are the two main factors that changes the way we see things due to either our reasons (rationalists) and just plainly what we actually see (empiricists). Knox uses the metaphor to show how both of the groups are correct by saying how even though the world is red because of the glasses, one would know through our knowledge that it obviously isn’t. Both of the groups were too blinded by their own believes that they couldn’t take off their own glasses and see the world as it is and not what their believes sees the world as.

We see shoes and know they are shoes through our knowledge but we cannot ignore the fact that our senses are the ones that sees what it is. Our reason can’t tell us if it’s blue or black, our reason can’t tell us if it’s high or flat heels. Our reason can only tell us how we feel about something after it passes our eyes. Reason alone cannot fully determine what something is; it alone can only be used to determine how we feel about something like if those shoes were pretty or not.

The way we perceive the world as. The way we were taught to see it as. The way we were made to see it as. Through education and society feeding us with information about the world it blinds us all into seeing the world as everyone does but with our own reasoning, it makes us all an individual since everyone has their own unique thoughts. For example, those shoes that were mentioned earlier on, with our senses two people would see the exact color it is in and if it’s high or flat heeled, but with our reasoning, one would say it’s pretty and the other might not think they are.

Shoes being pretty or not, is just how one perceives it as, just because some famous celebrity is wearing it doesn’t mean that it is all that. Through the ‘red tinted glasses’ Kant shows us that we shouldn’t rely only on our senses but also our reasoning to determine how you truly think and not how everyone else thinks.