Assignment II: The red tinted glasses

I believe that the metaphor of the red-tinted glasses is emphasizing how we perceive certain things which is limited by different factors. The experiment of the red-tinted glasses shows how the red colour deceives Sophie's senses and makes the world around her seem red. What this means is that whatever we perceive from our senses can be wrong and misleading due to the limits illustrated by the red colour of the glasses in the book.

One example of Kant's idea would be how people judge stranger. It is natural to judge a person by their looks or behaviour. For example, the stranger may look very big and tough which may lead us to think that he isn't friendly however once we find out about that stranger personally then we realise he is actually kind and approachable. In this case, our senses of the person's appearance and behaviour are our 'glasses'. Many of these situations appear in movies and other form of media which 'influence the way we experience the world'. On a global scale, one event which was influenced by one man's perception would be the genocide of the Jews in WWII. Hitler clearly perceived the Jews as rich and apathetic during his early year when he was mainly idle and poor. This example again misleads a person due to their limit which in Hitler's case was his prejudice towards the Jews and other groups of people with disabilities.

Both the rationalists and empiricists have flaws according to Kant. The rationalists believe that one forms opinion by relying upon reason alone whilst the empiricists believe that pure reasoning alone wasn't sufficient to gain knowledge of the world, but experienced was also required. In the case of the rationalists, Spinoza believed that 'everything happens through the necessity of natural law' which Kant dismissed and stated that it was another case of human reason being unable to make a certain judgment. I more or less agree with the rationalists however reason alone in certain situations can limit our views constantly so experiencing what goes around us is also important to keeping a open mind and not narrowing our belief through one idea.

In conclusion, the metaphor of the red-tinted glasses clearly state how we perceive other things through narrow views. Without both reasoning and experience people around the world will never have the same views as each person would have different 'glasses' in which to view at certain things. We should not rely on sense alone or our perception would be misleading and can lead to inappropriate consequences.