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.
After reading the metaphor of the red tinted glasses again, I have come to appreciate the depth of Kant's thinking. Because I've read on, I can bring Hegel's terms into the discussion and say that he created a synthesis of the two views put forth by the Empiricists and the Rationalists. The rationalists Descartes and Spinoza believed in the importance of reason and that man has a few innate ideas prior to experience. The empiricists Locke, Hume and Berkeley on the other hand refused to tolerate that we had any ideas prior to experience and that everything we know we have experienced through our senses. Kant draws a picture that brings in ideas from both views. He thinks that all our knowledge about the world is gathered from our sensations, but that reason helps determine how we see the world. This leads on to Alberto Knox's metaphor of the red-tinted glasses and that we will never know the truth behid what we are seeing. It's like we are permanently wearing a pair of coloured glasses and we will never know if the world is in fact black and white.
This metaphor in particular made me think more carefully about how I approach the biggest problems of life. If we can't trust our senses (which according to the empiricists and Kant) provide us with all our current knowledge, what can we trust? It's like trying to detect water with a metal detector. Humans just do not have the ability at present to remove the "glasses of reason" and see things from a different perspective.
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5 comments:
I sort of agree that humans cannot remove the "glasses of reason" but then how did we know we had them on? In this case it would be like finding water with the metal detector but just not able to extract it.
Is the world really as simple as black and white? I know this is a metaphor but there are so many different facets of life that one can explore that i feel the expression "black and white" is slightly derogatory.
Yes, as a human being, it is difficult for one to "remove the glasses of reason", but does that mean one cannot see things from a different perspective? I believe that it is possible for someone to retain their own beliefs yet be able to acknowledge and understand other points of view. That's basically what philosophers and debaters do right?
"Humans just do not have the ability at present to remove the "glasses of reason" and see things from a different perspective."
I do not fully agree with this. Because if we can't remove our "glasses of reason", then how would anybody have known we had them on in the first place. I believe our reason is derived from our background, culture, race etc which all shield us. So we can remove these "glasses", but that requires strength from us to leave our comfort zone, which many of us do not want to do. Another case is philosophers such as Knox have removed their "glasses of reason" and see the world in a different view, enabling them to question life.
What I think the red tinted glasses are is a screen. What we see is all still the SAME. All the information that our senses receive. If each of us were to stand in the same room, in the same spot, we would "sense" exactly the SAME thing. But, how we "perceive" this is a different matter.
The glasses are like something covering up what the REALITY is. It is nothing to do with perspectives, because we are all thinking beings and therefore have our own perspectives. If you read Xiang's example of the Matrix, it is exactly that same idea I have unsuccessfully conveyed. Everything we see is just a mirage and that we CAN't take off our glasses of reason and see the REAL WORLD.
I hope this clarifies things :)
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