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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Your explanation that "to percieve the world fully we need reason and senses" is quite true. In Psychology, perception and sensation are two processes which are seperate yet are interlinked. This is because what images, incidents we take in through our retina is only what we percieve, but to truly understand the incoming information, the brain has to reason it, and that is where the Rationalists and Emiricists are both correct.
Also, other factors of upbringing affecting a person's glasses would be the places we visit and what we learn in and outside school.
I totally agree with the fact that external factors and our upbringing affect a person's view point and that we all wear such different glasses where we percieve differently from others. Our glasses are unique and only fit a glass is only fit for one particular person.
I really like the way, you used boys and girls and how the glasses as in the view points are of so much difference. It is more like stereotyping and we all wear such stereotypical glasses. That's why we always believe when a baby is born and is wrapped with a blue blanket it's a boy and when it's wrapped with a pink blanket, it's a girl. Each and every one of us wear glasses and through them we see a stereotyped world.
"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."
Hi Elise,
I liked how you related the situation with which comes first - reason or senses - to the chicken-or-egg dilemma.
I look at reason and senses to be a cycle. Reason comes from whatever has been passed down through generations as "facts", and using our senses, we come to a reason, and so on.
I was also wondering about whether reason or senses come first. But I think they both exist at the same time. There are common knowledge (reasons) that everyone get taught. And senses build up on those basic knowledge. They may also be used to confirm our existing knowledge. However, upon something new we may gain new reasoning.
I agree with Jocelyn that they both exists at the same time although sometimes we tend to use our sense first because i think that seeing is one of the fastest way we recieve information before anything else and then reason comes in to justify whether the thing we see is actually true. But that also depends on what we believe is true.
I totally agree with elise that there is no answer to whether empircism or rationalism comes first. To comment on your arguement, i would think that senses comes first. This is because we have to use our senses to learn things. we dont learn to see senses. We are naturally born how to see, hear, smell, touch and taste. Therefore, i think that to your arguement, i think empiricism comes first :)
Post a Comment