Assignment #2

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in Chapter 25 ('Kant').What's the meaning of it? 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 experiment “red-tinted glasses” used by Alberto Knox to show Sophie what we see can be very influential on how we view the world and how we see the world is limited by many things. In Alberto’s Experiment, Sophie’s view of the world is limited by the tinted glasses where everything she sees around her is in shades of red provided she puts them on. This tells us what Alberto is trying to show that both empiricists and rationalists both have some truth in their views although both are not entirely correct.

Rationalists believe that reasoning alone is the source of knowledge whereas empiricists believe that everything we learn is a result of senses like touch and seeing. By believing as a only a rationalist or empiricists we are limited into seeing only one side of everything for example, if we were to believe that men were better than women, then we would always view women as inferior. Rationalists would reason that since men are physically stronger and are more capable of manual labor better than women, it must be true that men are better than women. On the other hand, because of modern society, women are now seen as equal as men and are equally capable of doing everything men can do.
Kant saw validity in both of their views and believed that we obtain knowledge through both experiences and reason. Without either, one would not be able to know the complete truth and would have a restricted view of the world.

I personally agree with Kant that we have to rely on both experiences and reason to be able to have a better understanding of everything. Although we are not able to experience every single thing and our reasons might not always be correct we are able to trust what we have and create our own knowledge.