"RED TINTED GLASSES"

The “red tinted glasses” are plastic glasses covered with red filter paper. In this way, the glasses limit the way we perceive things. Biologically, when we put on the glasses, we can see everything in red, since all the other colors are absorbed. Therefore everything we see is determined by our glasses but how we see it is determined by the glasses we wear. So we cannot say the world is red even though we conceived it being so. Despite, Sophie seeing everything in red or crimson, it doesn’t mean that everything around her is in red; it is based on each individual’s viewpoint. For example, when I go home from school, I would see everything the way I normally do, and if I am wearing the red-tinted glasses then it would all be in red as long as I didn’t take of the glasses. This is what Kant meant, there are certain conditions that govern the mind’s operation which affect they way we experience the world. In other words, we can know before we experience things that we will perceive and that we are not able to take off the “glasses” of reason.

In the past, there were two types of philosophic traditions, rationalism of “Descartes and Spinoza” and the empiricism of “Locke, Berkeley and Hume.” Rationalists believed that the basis of all human knowledge lay in the mind and Empiricists believed all knowledge of the world proceeded from the senses. I agree more with Rationalists because even if I wear the glasses, in my mind I know how everything around is, so I know how to perceive exactly how it is. However, it can also be that this is how it appears to us. When we look at this in depth, Rationalists have forgotten how to experience the world and only perceive it with the way it is and Empiricists had shut their eyes to the way our own mind influences and interprets the way we see the world. Through this I understand that each human being has a unique way of perceiving things since we are all bought up with different beliefs, ideas and thoughts.

Today, I may not wear red glasses but I do wear glasses. They may be of different frames; it doesn’t mean that my ideologies and beliefs are different. Every time, I go for an eye-checkup, my number might have increased and thus this will affect my lens but my perception of recognizing the world is the same. Therefore, I may chose my frame and lens but everyone doesn’t see the world as I do, some believe in the cause and effect of the event, some perceive the world, some see as it appears to be. Overall, everyone is unique and has their own perception and therefore their own glasses with their unique lens and frame.