If a baby was born with an inbuilt pair of red tinted glasses, will he accept the fact that an apple can be green?

... Will he even understand what on earth you are talking about?

Actually, how do we know that the world we see is supposed to be colorful? We are assuming that a ‘colored vision’ is normal just because the majority of the population is born with it. If we stop considering ourselves a superior race, maybe, just maybe, the world is suppose to be black and white (according to dogs)? Maybe the tinted glasses do help us see the truth? Maybe the “limited vision” is the truth? It is all really confusing but… how do we know that color-blind people are not the ‘normal ones’? Black and white vision might be the truth according to many species of animals. After all, we might be limiting our vision by labeling blood ‘red’ and the sky ‘blue’. Just for the record, blood itself can be crimson, maroon, scarlet, vermilion, madder… (lets not talk about the sky) and no, they are not the same color.

The ‘Red-tinted glasses experiment’ carried out by Alberto Knox proves how we can “limit” the way we “perceive” things.

Throughout the book, Knox has constantly been challenging Sophie to think outside the box and explore the limits. Well, in order for us to view the whole picture, we must put on our rational pair of glasses as well as our empirical pair. We can relate this theory to those glasses we put on when watching a 3-D movie. If we cover one side, all we get is the world in one color. But if we use both lenses, we get a 3-D image. Let’s just say that the red side represents sense and the blue side represents reasoning. We need a balance in order to make judgments accurately and accordingly (well, to ourselves at least). One might be a 9-year old genius who completed a math degree at the best math school in the world, yet who still struggles to make friends. Balance.

There is always more than one way to see the world. We cannot be dead-on empiricist or rationalist. Imagine two people, one on each side of a room. In the middle of the room, lies a box. One side of a box is black while the other side is white. Naturally, when we ask these two people ‘what color is the box?’ the answer will not be correct. This, is limiting our vision. This, is shielding areas of our world and restricting our way to “perceive” it.

In a way, I think all of us are born with colorless glasses, perfect glasses. Through our maturation, these glasses start ‘tinting’. Both sides do not have to tone proportionally (for example, scientists and doctors might have a more opaque blue side (with their jobs resorting to reasoning)). These glasses we have on make us who we are. Although they are formed by our personal experience and knowledge, they do filter out parts of the reality we choose not to accept. From believing that ‘blondes are dumb’ to believing that ‘asians have slanted eyes’ to being a Nazi to being optimistic… all are still sifting out and recreating our own realism.

We can change sense or reasoning. We create our reality. Though it might not be correct, Rationalists, Empiricists, it is our choice.

Pre-ToK Assignment #2: Response by Xiang Ding

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.

(above: Immanuel Kant)

In Chapter 25, Alberto uses the red-tinted glasses as a way of explaining to Sophie about the interrelationship between perception and reason. It is a way of telling us why Kant agrees with neither the empiricists nor the rationalists.

Empiricists believed that all knowledge of the world comes from our senses and our experience of the world. This is shown not to be true since if we put on the red-tinted glasses, we are still seeing the same world, but which is now different to us from without the glasses. We see the world in the way we see it, but that does not mean the world is as we see it.

Rationalists believed that the basis of human knowledge come from our mind. Without outside stimulus coming from our senses, there is no such thing as knowledge. Reason has to be applied to what we sense, but without our senses, there is nothing to reason.

I have always wondered about what the real world looks like. This line of thought is similiar to what we learnt in Religious Studies in Year 9 (visiting the Matrix). What is the table in front of me? If I was an alien species would I see something different in front of me in place of the table, for example - empty space? Is there a sixth sense, seventh sense which could give us entirely different perceptions of the world? There probably are. In this way, I believe our knowledge of the world before us is limited by our senses, whereas there is no limit to our reason since inteligence or potential inteligence is infinite (e.g. supercomputers).

Kant is a great philosopher and his thinking has drastically influenced and affected life in the 18th Century. There is much to learn from Kant.

Xiang Ding N1

A broken pair of glasses reflects more sense and reason than a perfect pair does.

Imagine a world with a clear division between right and wrong, good and bad. Imagine a world where every single inhabitants, regardless of his/her nationality, culture, religion, gender, age views all aspects of the world with identical judgment. Just imagine. If that very model of a world did indeed exist, everything would be crystal clear and we would all find ourselves looking at the world through a flawlessly immaculate, transparent and thoroughly polished lens- no spots, no cracks to alter our vision even slightly. We would just simply accept what we sense, and apply that sensory experience to our reason for future occasions. Our empirical and rational outlooks will be one and the same.

Sadly, (or is it thankfully?) we do not live in a world where all of us can look at life through the same pair of glasses. Instead, we are in a world where we can “determine how we perceive the world around us”, thus decide what type of glasses we observe the world through. This is where Gaarder’s extended metaphor of the “red-tinted glasses” comes into the picture. The red colour of the lenses represents one of the millions of different ways to absorb the surrounding, and on the bigger picture, the limitation to the way in which one perceives reality. The frames that form rectangular screens across Sophie’s vision do not reveal the world in multi-colour, but instead, filter only the colour of red into her eyes. For as long as Sophie remains wearing the red-tinted glasses, she will be oblivious of the world in other colours; her life only restricted to the “pink…crimson” view before her lenses, leaving her fully unaware of the world in any other colours besides red.

Keeping Sophie and the red-tinted glass experiment in mind, let us add to the scenario a baby with blue-tinted glasses on. If Sophie and the baby were both to be placed in a beach, they will equally experience the same landscape. However, their perceptions of the view before their eyes will greatly differ. The red and blue coloured lenses symbolise the dissimilar “conditions governing [their] mind’s operation”. As an explanation to this, Kant believes that “perceiving things in time and space… precedes every experience”. This conveys that whatever we observe through our senses amends to our inherent reason of time and space. Because Sophie’s consistent experience tells her that the world is not red, she goes against what her empirical shows her. Contrastingly, the baby will perceive the world as it is in the colour blue- the baby’s lack of sensual experience easily breaks through the wall of innate reason and fills in the baby’s form of time and space, thus the baby will always see the world through the blue filter and create his own idea of the world.

The red-tinted glasses metaphor was a challenging conundrum to unfold, but it sure was worth the effort. The metaphor takes two extreme sides of the rationalists and the empiricists, and merges them together to form a single moderate and credible proposal. By comparing human perspectives to coloured glasses, Gaarder perfectly illustrates the idea of people absorbing and judging the world in their own individual ways. It is quite frustrating to imagine myself with a pair of glasses that influences everything I see, and my friends with a different pair. But then again, isn’t this very idea of having different perspectives the reason to personal opinions and beliefs? Personally, I would very much rather prefer a world of assorted outlooks and judgments than a world of fixed and universal viewpoint to everything. Different opinions are the key roots to inspirations and development of thoughts. What will become of the world with no diverse ideas to compare with and contrast from?

Individual red, blue, spotty, sparkly glasses are much more appealing than universally shared crystal clear glasses. A broken pair of glasses reflects more sense and reason than a perfect pair does. However, it would be a waste of our perspectives to keep our own views of the world private. We should swap our glasses from time to time, and get to know what the world is like not only “for me”, but also for you, for her, for him, for them and for us- even if that means not knowing what the world is like “in itself”.

Assignment II: Mind Over Matter

I think that the Red Tinted Glasses experiment used by Alberto Knox in Chapter 25 shows Knox’s disagreement with empiricists and his support of the rationalist ideas. The glasses prove that it is possible to ‘limit the way you perceive reality’ by distorting the information collected by the senses, thus showing the flaws of the empiricists’ thinking. Although her senses have been fooled, Sophie still realizes that she sees ‘exactly the same as before, except that it’s all red.’ Sophie’s reasoning and experience is able to properly interpret the altered sensory image and understand that, although the image has changed, the thing itself has not. Her ability to use reasoning to find the truth supports the idea that the mind is more reliable than the senses.

I find myself agreeing with Kant’s view; that sensing and reason cannot exist without one another and that they both play an important part in our understanding of our world. There is no point in neglecting your senses and only using your reasoning to understand the world since there would be no new sensory information or experiences to further develop your ability to reason. Similarly, there is no point in collecting masses of information through the senses without the proper analysis and interpretation of reasoning, as this mass of information would be useless. This point is illustrated in page 326, where the water (sensory information) is shaped by the pitcher (reasoning) to produce a complete understanding and interpretation. Without the pitcher, it would all be a big mess. Without the water, there is no point of the pitcher existing.

However, I feel that the mind and its ability to reason is more important than sensory information. It is our individual and unique minds that ultimately change our sensory information into something understandable. We are able to use our reasoning to find the truth even though our sensory information is altered. Although our reasoning can be influenced by factors such as morals, bias and emotions, it is the best and only way we can understand our world in spite of the red tinted glasses that inhibit our senses.

kent's theory= it depends on the subject X3

From the book, it seems to analyze that the red tinted glasses as the example of Kent’s theory to describe perspective view of the world by using the sense (look) and the reason (knowledge), combined together. i am confused if Kent's theory actually fits to whole lot, it seems to depend on the subject. Only people with great amount of knowledge and experiences actually suit Kent's theory.

It's like when a thirteen year old boy wears this special glasses, even though, he sees the actual view in front of him in red, he however rejects the fact the whole view as "red". He actually knows that the world is not "red". It suits very well with Kent's theory.

However, if an animal or a baby wore these red glasses, how would it react? Would it actually acknowledge that the world is actually not red? I would like to say, I am slight unsure, but they would probably accept that the world is red. Even though I am not sure of an animal but the baby would probably look amused and also maybe clap by seeing something different and as time passes by it decides see the world as red.

When it refers to an animal wearing a pair of red tinted glasses seems to be similar to the example of a horse wearing the bridle, which covers both sides of its head.

A horse, wears a bridle. It could only see the front. Even though there are fresh crops by the side it cannot recognize that it is there. Then suddenly, the carrot is put in the front and this horse especially Luvs carrots. Would it think of the reason of a random carrot suddenly standing in front of it? It would actually not think about it, it would only think about the food, its sight is the only one which is fully concentrated on the horse. It would definitely run for it until it gets the carrot.

Even though, baby is a human, still it doesn't have great amount of knowledge and experience.
A baby, only few months old, not capable enough to walk is forced to walk. At the first time as it's suddenly forced to do it, I am sure, It will start crying like mad. However as time passes by, it will just accept it and begins to walk and learn later that this is one of the knowledge. It
now sees for the first time, itself standing. The babies seem to be the usual ones, which begin
to absorb on using the mixture of look and reason, but not as Kent's theory.

So, yup. Kent's theory is not fully acceptable; even though Kent's theory on the combo of sensation and reason is a great idea and suits exactly to the people with knowledge and experiences however, it doesn't get along with other living species other than them.

Seeing through the colored glass

In Chapter 25, Sophie learns about Kant’s philosophy by putting the ‘red-tinted glasses’ on. So what IS the meaning of the extended metaphor and HOW do these questions of perspective apply to my own life? In my perspective (through my own pair of glasses), I see the extended metaphor differently to how Gaarder has put it. I see it as a pair of red-blue tinted 3D glasses, exactly like the one shown in the prompt. Assuming that the empiricists are blue and the rationalists are red, we need both sides to balance out or else the pair of 3D glasses would not be complete. For example, if you go in one of the 3-D cinemas, it is necessary to put on a pair of those 3-D glasses, if not, you would not be able to see the full picture (as shown in the picture where blue rays pass through the red lens and vice versa). My interpretation is that we are already born with one pair of the red-blue tinted 3D glasses.

In literal sense, glasses serve to correct distortions of physical eyesight, badly made or wrongly prescribed glasses will cause their own distortions thus it can affect an individual’s perception of the world. In this case, however, we are already born with a pair of glasses and we continue to put on more pairs as we grow up. The pair that we are born with already contains both the red and the blue (empiricist and rationalist view) except at different shades. These imbalances of the shades mean that we either have too much reasoning or rely too much on our senses. This would in turn create bias views and lead to issues. The red glasses are an example of how our perceptions are influenced by conditions governing the mind’s processing of experience. This links back to the previous assignment where as we grow up, we experience more, therefore we ‘seem’ to wonder less and here, we ‘seem’ to view the world differently throughout our lives with more pairs of glasses.

Many argue that the glasses “limit the way you perceive the reality” and by “taking them off”, you will be able to see the reality clearly. But according to what I think, we are born with a pair of glasses (regardless of the lens, frame, shade, curvature, etc because it varies from person to person) within us and it cannot be taken off. A common idiom ‘rose tinted glass’ applies very much to myself, this means that all the negative factors/ view of the world is filtered and taken out, with only the pleasant parts left. The color of the shades is mainly based on our experience and how we want to perceive the world. In order to view the reality, more and more shaded glasses must be put on so that we can increase the color range until we see white light – a color that does not affect our perception of the world at all.

How we see the world is partly determined by the glasses we are wearing, but also by mental preconceptions. We cannot say that the world is red even though temporarily, everything is red. Kant thought that both rationalists “Descartes and Spinoza” and empiricists “Locke, Berkeley and Hume” were “both partly wrong and right”. Rationalists believed that the basis for all human knowledge could be found in mind whilst empiricist believed all knowledge of the world came from our senses. This relates back to my psychology knowledge where I have learnt the difference between ‘sensation’ - the physical stimulation of sensory receptors and ‘perception’ - interpreting, organizing and elaborating sensory information. Kant believed that certain factors in our mind influence our experience of the world. We perceive everything as occurring in time and space and these are innate characteristics of the human mind. Kant divides the world into things as they are in themselves and as we perceive them. We cannot know things as they are in themselves, but we can know how to perceive them.

To conclude, I believe that the “red tinted glasses” does change our perception slightly but I disagree to the fact that it “limits the way” we perceive reality. We will eventually wear the pair of red glasses at one point in our life. It is essential that we understand Kant’s theory where he took in the empiricists view, the rationalists view and other external factors. No matter what or how many glasses we are wearing, we must be aware of what really is happening around us and do not bias our views of reality as it may lead to severe world consequences such as stereotypes and racism.

Assignment 2: "Red tinted glasses"

“Red tinted glasses” a metaphor used to describe the way we perceive the world. It limits our way of seeing but it doesn’t prevent us from using our ‘senses’ to see things.

The two main groups mentioned in this chapter, the rationalists and the empiricists are the two main factors that changes the way we see things due to either our reasons (rationalists) and just plainly what we actually see (empiricists). Knox uses the metaphor to show how both of the groups are correct by saying how even though the world is red because of the glasses, one would know through our knowledge that it obviously isn’t. Both of the groups were too blinded by their own believes that they couldn’t take off their own glasses and see the world as it is and not what their believes sees the world as.

We see shoes and know they are shoes through our knowledge but we cannot ignore the fact that our senses are the ones that sees what it is. Our reason can’t tell us if it’s blue or black, our reason can’t tell us if it’s high or flat heels. Our reason can only tell us how we feel about something after it passes our eyes. Reason alone cannot fully determine what something is; it alone can only be used to determine how we feel about something like if those shoes were pretty or not.

The way we perceive the world as. The way we were taught to see it as. The way we were made to see it as. Through education and society feeding us with information about the world it blinds us all into seeing the world as everyone does but with our own reasoning, it makes us all an individual since everyone has their own unique thoughts. For example, those shoes that were mentioned earlier on, with our senses two people would see the exact color it is in and if it’s high or flat heeled, but with our reasoning, one would say it’s pretty and the other might not think they are.

Shoes being pretty or not, is just how one perceives it as, just because some famous celebrity is wearing it doesn’t mean that it is all that. Through the ‘red tinted glasses’ Kant shows us that we shouldn’t rely only on our senses but also our reasoning to determine how you truly think and not how everyone else thinks.

Justin Yu- Green tinted retinas…

In Chapter 25 of the novel, Sophie’s world; Albert Knox uses Red tinted glasses as a metaphor to describe the way humans are limited in their understanding of the world because the “red tint” changes our entire perception of the world. A lot of what we assimilate about the world is interpreted from our senses. For example, a tomato is red. Now find me an empiricist who can use a formula or an equation to prove otherwise. Does not seem possible correct? Birds of prey rely on their tremendous eyesight to hunt. They have a photopigment in their retina that can detect ultraviolet light in the electromagnetic spectrum. Ask a bird what colour a tomato is, and it would not say red. A cat on the other hand; will say a tomato is green. The cat’s retinas do not contain cone cells that tell the brain it is seeing the colour red. This means they see tomatoes as green. Imagine if we were in the same situation. Humans would have “green tinted retinas” in this case…

I am sure, that the reader has heard of “Roses are red, violets are blue…” I would like the reader at this point to answer the question. What is the colour red? It is likely you are dumbfounded by this. The witty ones amongst you will say “red” is a word. And right you are. Red is only a word. Ask an empiricist what the colour red is, and he’ll recite “an effect of light with a wavelength between 610 and 780 nm”. Ask a rationalist what red is, and he is likely to compare it to the colour of blood etc. The only reason we say something is red is because that is what we have been taught from a young age. “See baby Justin? This is a circle. It is the colour red” What if I had deranged parents and they told me the colour of the circle was aboo-gabah. And what if I told my other baby friends the colour of their ketchup was called aboo-gabah? We would be modern day Galileos; looked down on by society because we questioned what was thought to be common sense.

From this we can conclude, red is just a word. A word in the English language. A word that without the objects we associate with the colour red; one that is hollow and meaningless.

Glasses provide different perspectives

In chapter 25, when Alberto tried to explain Kant's philosophical theory to Sophie, he asked her to put on a pair of red-tinted glasses as an experiment. As a result of looking through those glasses, everything Sophie saw was in different shades of red. Although the world then became red to Sophie, was it really red? No. Kant's point was that both rationalists and empiricists are partially correct about how we perceive things. Empiricists think that our knowledge is obtained from the sensations we experience. We are born without knowledge of things in our new world, but we learn from experiences. Alberto gave an example of this: say you've never eaten an green apple before, therefore, you don't know what it is. But after you've eaten several, you will learn of its colours, taste and texture. Then in the future you can tell that a green apple is a green apple either by looking at it or tasting it. So, in the red-tinted glasses experiment, the glasses have provided a new colour sense to Sophie, giving her a different view of the world.

However, as answered before, how the world appears to be doesn't mean it is that way in real life. It's like how you can't judge a book by its cover. Although I can't deny that the cover design does affect my decision when selecting books. So I understand why Kant partially agrees with the empiricists. But if the world isn't necessarily the way it appears to be to the human eye, then how do we know what it really is like? This is when Kant supports the rationalists' view; knowledge is gained from the reasoning of the human mind. Descrates, a rationalist, believes that "The more self-evident a thing is to one's reason, the more certain it is that it exists." Sophie's reason and memory tells her that the world is multi-coloured, therefore, she doesn't accept the new red insight of the world.

Another example of learning from reasoning is that people long ago reasoned that the world is not round, and if one continues to travel is one direction, eventually one will reach the edge of the world and fall off. This idea came to their mind because when one looks across a landscape anywhere around the world, it looks flat. As a result of this observation, the image of a flat, vast piece of landscape with all the countries and seas was conjured up in people's minds. Personally, I think this theory is very reasonable. But unfortunately, yet fortunately, they were wrong.

There are many types of glasses (such as sunglasses, shortsighted glasses and 3-Dimensional glasses), each giving the wearer a different perspective of sight. However, it is not just the glasses that we wear that affect our insight, our individual reasoning is another factor that makes everyone have a different perspective of things. For example, a shortsighted friend and I have different degree of shortsightedness, therefore one pair of glasses won't satisfy the both of us. Another example is that people may have the same knowledge of certain facts, but how they interpret them would vary. Overall, I think that glasses just give people a new perspective of what they see.

The Experiment...

In the book, Alberto Knox uses the “red-tinted glasses” as an experiment to demonstrate “Kant’s” philosophy that two elements contribute to our knowledge of the world. These two elements are our senses as well as our ability to reason. In this case, when Sophie puts on the tinted glasses, she sees everything in the room except their colors range from pink to crimson. Thus, Sophie’s ‘ability to reason’ is telling her that she is still in the room with Alberto Knox, but at the same time, how she sees the room, depends on the glasses that she is wearing. Because she is wearing the red-tinted glasses, Sophie sees the room in different shades of red. By combining these two elements, Sophie understands how Kant’s philosophy works. She knows the room (and Alberto Knox) is not suppose to be in shades of red because of her ability to think, reason and remember, but she sees things in hues of red because of her ability to see (her sense).

If one combines these two elements together, everyone would have a slightly different view of life. In other words, the combination of the two elements gives everyone their own point of view. This can be proved by one asking your friends how hard a certain test was, some might say that it was easy, some say fair and the rest say it was hard. This was also shown in the book, like how the rationalists, the empiricists, and Kant had different views of how we experience life. Kant thinks the two elements mentioned earlier combined are responsible for this. While the rationalists believed that reason and science is the key to our experience, and last but not least, the empiricists judge that our ability to perceive and experience is what supplies us with our knowledge of the world.

The theory behind the red-tinted glasses is shown more than once in the book. Another example is when a ball comes rolling into a room. If one was a cat, as Sophie says, one would “run after the ball”. However, if one was a human, one would look where the ball came from. Thus, what we see might be the same as a cat, but our ability to reason is different. Therefore, our “knowledge of the world” ends up different to that of a cat.

At the same time, this theory can also be presented in reality. As mentioned before, when you and your friends do the same test, each of you will have a different opinion of the test. Some of you will say that it was easy; some will say that it’s fair and the rest will probably say that it was hard. You all took the same test, but because of all your different abilities to reason, you all ended up with different experiences of the test. This consequently differs your knowledge of the world to that of your friends.

Everyone in this world holds their own unique pair of glasses, giving them their own way of perceiving and judging things around us. No two people will have the exact knowledge of the world. This is what makes us all unique and what makes us part of who we are and no one else.

Assignment #2

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.

The glasses of reason

In ‘Kant’, the “red-tinted glasses” is a symbol of the limitation of perception; the glasses serve as the “conditions” in our mind, in which we experience the world. Immanuel Kant believed that although we saw the world using our senses, our cognition, or reason, is the ‘glasses’ that limit the way we perceive reality. However, Sophie also says that everything she sees is “exactly the same as before, except that it’s all red”. Although we perceive that the world is red due to the coloured lenses, we know that it is simply due to these glasses that the world is red, in reality it is not. Here it is revealed to us that there are always two different points of view in any given situation.

One example is the contradiction between rationalism and empiricism. Rationalists believed reason was innate and all knowledge relies on our cognitive processes; the sensory world was unreliable. In contrast, empiricists believed that there was nothing in the mind that has not been experienced by the senses first. Kant on the other hand, believed that all sensory information would have to conform through reason. This sensory information can be seen as water being poured into a ‘glass pitcher’ – the water adapts into the form of the pitcher, which is our reason. This illustrates how ‘things conform to the mind’, the same way that ‘the mind can conform to things’, as shown when our vision is filtered by the tinted glasses

In a sense, Kant had combined both the views of the rationalists and the empiricists, whilst they themselves had been forming their own philosophical theories based on their own ways of perception. In effect, they were wearing their own tinted glasses and looking at the world. This, I believe, gives way to an individual’s personal beliefs – each person had their own tinted glasses to perceive the world in, and this mode of perception was innate and develops through experience and social circumstances. It is these ‘glasses’ that everyone wears, that gives personal basis for how we perceive other people (such as when forming impressions or stereotyping). Kant also states that we cannot take off these “glasses of reason”, thus we all hold distinct, individual views on the world around us.

An example of the different perspectives that lie within people is a recent encounter with an uncle of mine. Upon answering his question on why I was so tanned with accounts of beach trips this summer, he looked puzzled. I assumed that he moved to London in his twenties, and had a childhood during a period of time when most Chinese in Hong Kong were impoverished and had no time or resources for leisurely activities such as beach trips. Therefore I assumed again that it must have been a long time ago that he sunbathed. With these in mind, he must have been confused of my situation because of the lack of experience – or, in Kant’s terms, lack of sensory material – to process the ideas in his mind. In a sense, he had the glass pitcher but not enough water. However, with my assumptions, I am also looking through tinted glasses, as he is but in a different colour. We hold different views on how I got tanned due to the contrasting experiences we had growing up.

Red or blue? We need them both! - Myra Su

In order to explain what the red-tinted glasses represent, I'm going to have to modify Gaarder's metaphor slightly. Instead of glasses with just red lenses, I visualized those 3D glasses which have blue cellophane over one eye and red over the other (like the picture in the prompt).

So lets say rationalists have the blue side and empiricists have the red. When they look at the world, they keep one eye closed and only look through their designated color. At a movie theater, this would only allow you to see one of the two images projected on the screen, thus "limit[ing] the way you perceive". Kant believed that we needed elements from both rationalism and empiricism - reason and sensory perception. It's kind of like they are two parts of the same whole. Opening both eyes, looking through both the blue and red, you get the full movie picture - seeing more than you did before.

Why do we need to have this balance between these two extremes? To answer this, we need to explore the pros and cons of each of their arguments:

Rationalism
Here, more importance is placed on the non-physical world of ideas. Plato believed that ideas are innate, and already existed in the world of ideas before it became material in the physical world. Whether you agree with this or not can depend on whether you believe in the existence of God or not. For those who do, this statement is plausible as God is omniscient and omnipotent, everything on earth is predetermined. A creator must have ideas first before they set about creating something. However, it is arguable that ideas are actually induced by the material world (see 'Empiricism').

Descartes, another rationalist said: "we cannot even trust what our senses tell us...maybe they are deceiving us". Since our senses are triggered by chemical or electrical signals, how can we be sure that what they're sensing is actually there? Therefore, the "thinking I [is] more real than the material world". On the other hand, I believe this statement contradicts everything he said previously. Isn't the act of thinking in it itself the result of physical reactions in the brain? When you put someone through a CAT scan, it is obvious that there is brain activity when one is thinking. It doesn't happen out of thin air.

Empiricism
In contrast to Plato, Aristotle was an empiricist, believing that "nothing exists in consciousness that has not first been experienced by the senses". For example, if dinosaur bones weren't discovered, no one would know that they used to exist. It's impossible for a child to recall the existence of everything on the planet, let alone things that are still in the world of ideas and haven't "existed" yet. However, I don't believe that this can apply to every aspect of our lives. So far, I've been referring to "ideas" as knowledge, but if you look at "ideas" in terms of perception, I think it is something one is born with.

Back to the 3D glasses analogy - even if we are all wearing the same pair of glasses, watching the same movie, we will all interpret the "data" differently. Basically, the only thing that is innate is the fact that we perceive, but what we perceive is not. Though the environment we were brought up in can shape the way we think, it doesn't have total control over our mind's development. Say you were a twin, raised up in the same family with the same lifestyle, school and friends; would that mean that the way you both think would be completely the same? No.

To conclude, the main reason why we need to take heed of both sensory perception and reason is that whilst some things can be proved through observation others can only be determined through reasoning. We cannot completely ignore the physical or non-physical. If you were completely concerned about the non-physical, you'll be missing out on all the answers that are staring at you in the face. Likewise, being obsessed with the physical limits your perception beyond the senses.

Assignment 2 – The Red Tinted Glasses of Doom

The Empiricists believed that all data and knowledge on the world that surrounds us is learnt through our senses, experiences. On the other hand, the Rationalists that believed all knowledge about this world can be deduced through reason and mind. When these ‘red-tint glasses’ are put on by Sophie. Her ‘visual world’ goes pink and crimson; however, her mental world is still the world as it was before the glasses came along. This is because her mind KNOWS that the world is only red because of the glasses. When I put on tinted glasses, I don’t think the world is colored at all because I know it’s not; I cannot say the world is red even thought that is what I see it as through the colored glasses.
In this sense, I think the red tinted glasses are representing the limitations of the two different ideas; that of the Empiricists and that of the Rationalists.
Alberto then presents us with the idea that we cannot take off the ‘glasses of reason’. Being human, no matter how our experience tells us, if it is completely illogical, we will try to reject it based on sole reasoning. For example, if you’re sailing in the sea and suddenly, you see that the world is really flat. What do you do? You’d probably slap yourself and convince yourself that you’re probably dreaming (at least that’s what I’d do). However, it doesn’t mean that experience and senses are not dependable and influential. Once again, imagine the previous scenario. What happens, if you continued to sail and really fell off the side of the earth? Well, firstly, it’d hurt and you’d probably die; secondly, you’d probably start believing that the world is actually flat instead of round, then you’d start praying to god. However, the point here is that, what we believe is based on which set of glasses is more ‘powerful’. I also think that, whenever our ‘glasses of reasoning’ dominates, we are putting on another set of tinted glasses to cover up the real world. On the other hand, when our ‘glasses of experience’ dominates, we are taking a pair off, and revealing to the world as it really is.
In reality, we all wear glasses. What we call stereotyping is a probably a tinted pair of glasses. Propaganda is the process of putting the glasses on. Experiencing, understanding and then rejecting the false idea is taking the glasses off. Ideas like ‘blacks are inferior’ were planted in American minds so many years ago. However, we all know that this isn’t true; in fact, black men are superior when it comes to muscle build and athleticism in general. Sadly, some people still wear these glasses. I also wear a pair of tinted glasses. I think that all Asian parents are insane and expect their children to be studying every second of their life (I think many of you may relate with me?). However, we KNOW this is completely bull****. Even though I’ve seen Asian parents more slack than Western parents (another pair of glasses I know I wear) my natural ‘glasses of reasoning’ still dominates my natural ‘glasses of experiences’ and therefore I cannot yet take these tinted glasses off.
I wonder how many pairs of glasses I actually wear… I don’t think my eyesight is THAT bad….

Don't judge a book by its cover

Revisit the "red-tinted glasses" extended metaphor in 'Kant'. What is 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.

In GCSE Psychology, I was taught that sensation refers to the physical stimulation of the sensory receptors, in other words, our merely responding to the things that happen around us. Perception on the hand refers to the process of interpreting, organising and elaborating on sensory information. This requires our deeper understanding of the things that we see. In a way, I believe the ‘red-tinted glasses’ is portrayed as a filter. It is the difference from our being able to respond to and our understanding of things. With the glasses on, we may see the world in one perspective, but with them off we may have a completely different idea.

Hume and the empiricists mention that ‘all our knowledge of the world comes from our sensations’. I do not agree with them. The rationalists on the other hand believe that ‘the basis for all human knowledge lay in the mind.’ I do not fully agree with this either. Merely using our senses to view things can lead to stereotyping and only using our minds may not be enough to perceive things fairly. For example, many people portray those with dark coloured skin as ‘dangerous’ or ‘evil’. Many white people and Asians commit terrible crimes too, yet majority of the population still look down upon the people with dark skin. Why is this? They have not thought about the different perspectives and variables that may lead to such discrimination. I believe apart from sensation, our mind, experiences and social background (our age, gender, ethnicity, etc.) also affects our knowledge of the world.

My family and I once went to the cinema to watch a movie shown three dimensionally. The movie was not actually 3D though, we wore special glasses and the images were designed so that with the glasses on, the images appear to be 3D. We soon learnt that when we take the glasses off, the images are 2D and when we have them on, they appear 3D. This is an example of how our mind and previous experience affect our perspective of things. We know that the images on the screen are not actually 3D and it is the way it is designed and the glasses that make it seem 3D. This example backs up Alberto’s ‘red-tinted glasses’ experiment: with the red glasses on, Sophie saw the world in a completely different perspective and we learn that ‘you cannot say the world is red even though you conceive it as being so’. My 3D example also supports his point that ‘everything you see is part of the world around you, but how you see it is determined by the glasses you are wearing.’ In simpler words, there are ‘decisive factors that determine how we perceive the world around us’, just like the rationalists mentioned.

To conclude, I believe the whole idea of the metaphor in this chapter is to suggest how humans perceive from more than one point of view. As well as our senses, ‘time’ and ‘space’ like Kant suggested, also alters the way in which we our minds and experiences interpret the world. Just like Kant’s example of ‘pouring water into a class pitcher’ and how the water adapts itself to the pitcher’s form, he illustrates that our perceptions adapt themselves to our ‘forms of intuition’. Basically, from this metaphor we learn that both our senses and experiences are a necessity for us to determine things, so we do not end up seeing things from a biased view. We cannot merely judge a book by its cover.

Assignment Two

The "Red-Tinted Glasses"

The meaning of the metaphor, “red-tinted glasses”, given through the book was that we are restricted to only one view of life and can never see the real image. As Albert Knox says, they “limit the way [we] perceive things” and yet we are unable to take them off.

If we were to put on these red lenses, everything we perceive would be red but we would know that they in reality are not. As Sophie says in the book it is not the world that has gone red but just that the things she see around her is red. However, what if we were born wearing the red lenses? According to what Knox said, we are “not able to off the ‘glasses’ of reason” so how would we know that not all the things we see are supposed to be red? After considering the contradiction between rationalists and empiricists, between our mind and our senses, I concluded that we cannot survive with just one. Our senses are what we use to collect information and our mind is how we decipher it. Because of the slight difference in the way each of us individuals receive and decipher information, our ‘glasses’ should all be different and personalised by the way that we were brought up and by the experiences that we go through.

The glasses that rationalists and empiricists wear are bound to be different. Similarly, the glasses that you and I are wearing are different as well. These glasses are what make us have our own views on the world, which eventually leads us to have our own answers to the questions in life. Even if they are initially inspired by another’s answer, our mind will alter them to suit us best. As I have learnt in Psychology, our previous experiences may lead us to generalise the outcomes of later ones. For example, if one has had several bad experiences on a boat, he/she may become reluctant to go on one in the future. The glasses of this particular individual will show the boat as a bad thing. However, not all of us are scared of boat rides and perhaps on the contrary, loves them. This proves that we build up different points of views and alter the way we see through the glasses as we grow up.

As a last point, I personally interpreted the glasses as what kept us from seeing what we cannot explain. This relates back to the first assignment and it raises the question whether we try to see only what we want to see.

Do the glasses HAVE to limit your sight?

In chapter 25, Alberto does an experiment in which Sophie puts on a pair of "red tinted glasses". Obviously, the room she was in becomes coloured in shades of red. This was done to show how the glasses limited Sophie's vision of the world around her as we are all limited by the "glasses of reason". Sophie learnt early about he rationalists (such as Descartes and Spinoza) and the empiricists (Locke, Berkeley and Hume). Rationalists believed that the basis of human knowledge layed in the mind and "shut their eyes" as well as their senses off from the world. Empiricists on the other hand believed that all the knowledge from the world was proceeded from our senses and denied reason. When Sophie puts on the red tinted glasses, she senses the room around her as being in shades of red but her reason tells her that she is just looking through a red filter and that the room is actually perfectly normal. This demonstrates how Kant agreed with both the Rationalists and the Empiricists as Sophie was able to sense the world around her being in shades of red but her reason told her otherwise and the truth.

I agree with Kant in that the way we percieve things incorporates both our senses and our mind. However, I also think that everybody in the world is wearing many pairs of glasses to the way they view certain things, ideas and events. One example would be racial stereotyping. Some people view other races as inferior and unimportant and this belief is caused by the "racial glasses" that they are wearing. In this case their upbringing or ideas/events that caused them to think like this would be the optician whom made the glasses to be fitted on the individual. In reality of course, and individual would be wearing many pairs of filtering glasses that would limit the way in which they percieve things.

To conclude, I believe that the experiment was a good way to show Sophie the flaws of both the Rationalists and the Empiricists and that we need both our senses and reasoning to completely understand the world we live in eventhough we may never completely remove all our filters.

I was going to post only one question in response to the assignment but feared getting in trouble so I did not. This could also be another example of how my "glasses" have limited my perceptions in that posting only one question in response would get me in trouble. Anyway, here is what I was going to ask:

"Why do the glasses HAVE to filter your view/perception of the world......if your eyesight is poor but the lens is correct, could the glasses not steer you in the right direction and clear up your vision of the world around you?"

Assignment #2 - Red Tinted Glasses

The “red-tinted glasses” to me is a mask that is put on for all of us, and cannot be removed even if we tried to. It means that when the ‘glasses’ are on, our views have changed. When Sophie puts on the glasses, she views the world as ‘crimson’ or ‘red’, otherwise known as her senses. Same as Sophie, if I was to put the glasses on, I would simply view where I am slightly red, but I would know that I am in the same place as I was before the glasses were put on. When the glasses were put on, we would become influenced by the thinking of how empiricists would.

This acquisition agrees with both empiricists and rationalists. For the reasons that even when the ‘glasses’ were put on, we do not assume the world is red, even though our views, sensations, are changed. Like what Sophie says that she knows the world isn’t red.

The empiricists, such as Hume, Locke, Berkeley, believed that ‘all knowledge of the world proceeded from the senses’. As they say that, they themselves have in a way ‘limits’ their own mind to thinking that. Like what Aristotle said, ‘there is nothing in the mind except what was first in the senses’. Because of this we can think that we do not have ‘innate’ senses, but we form the other senses around our ‘first’ sense. Where as rationalists, such as Descartes and Spinoza, believed that the ‘basis for all human knowledge lay in the mind’. Explaining that what we know is already situated inside us, but as we experience through life, we gain control of this knowledge. Both perspectives are seen as correct as it depends on which pair of ‘glasses’ we put on.
These perspectives apply to my life as when moments when I want to do things which will satisfy my senses, reason kicks in and changes my view and morality of what I am doing. An example would be when I see adults, or older relatives playing Mah Jong or cards, I would perceive it as a way that people have fun and enjoy themselves, but other people may see it as gambling and should not be allowed. This relates back to the fact that we perceive the situation differently, and that we have different ‘glasses’ on.

In conclusion, I believe that it is because of the way each and every one of us perceives the world, and the influences that compensate for each factor or obstacle that we overcome. Each of us put on a different set of ‘glasses’ and therefore have different views and perspectives.

The World - Not Always What We See

The meaning of the red-tinted glasses metaphor is that the way we view life is limited by how we perceive the world around us, in Knox’s words for Sophie, it ‘limit[s] the way you perceive things’. Our knowledge of the world comes from the ‘material of knowledge’ which we have perceived through our senses and the ‘form of knowledge’ which is limited by our perception of ‘time and space’.

I could not agree with Kant more.

When I was reading the part about how reasons governed our senses, immediately I thought about the Nazis. I can relate to what you are thinking, Anna. The story of Nazi Germany is a classic example of how dangerous it is to justify one’s actions based upon reason (innate ability) and influence other people’s perception of the world. Unfortunately, there are still people out there, some of them are scientists, who believe that one gender or certain races are more superior to another in terms of genetic make up or brain structure. They justify their beliefs by ‘scientific studies’ which, in Knox’s words, ‘their material of knowledge is conformed to their attribute of reasons’. As shown by this example:

Men Smarter than Women, Scientist claims

www.livescience.com/health/060908_brainy_men.html

I can also relate to what Knox said about ‘totality’ because I have always felt how small the space human beings occupy in the universe. The ‘time and space’ we perceive on planet Earth may not be the same as a Martian.

Reflections: Find the truth. Do not be afraid to look at things from as many perspectives as one can. Keep an open mind to make ones own red tinted glasses as colourless as possible.

Response to Assignment #2 - Hey Tou Chiu

In Chapter 25 – “Kant”, Alberto presents Sophie with a pair of red tinted glasses to explain to her about Kant’s philosophy. Not surprisingly, everything she sees around her becomes red, pink and crimson. He further explains that the ‘glasses’ we wear limit the way we perceive the world and reality. Everything we see is part of the world, but our ‘glasses’ changes the way how we as individuals see it. This experiment demonstrates Kant’s agreement with both the empiricists and rationalists. Kant agreed that our knowledge do come from our sensations and that within ourselves; there are ‘decisive factors’ that determine how we make out everything around us. Like in the book, Sophie would not say that the world is red just because she can see the world around her is red.

When I think about the rationalists - (i.e Descartes and Spinoza) who thought that ‘reason is a primary source of knowledge’; and the empiricists – (i.e Hume, Locke, Berkeley) who alleged that knowledge that we acquire about the world only comes from what our senses tell us, it came upon me that in actual fact, these philosophers themselves wore a pair of their own ‘glasses’ as well. For example, Descartes believed that ‘we cannot accept anything as being true unless we can clearly and distinctly perceive it’. Like what Plato said, ‘What we grasp with our reason is more real than what we grasp with our senses’, Descartes did not trust what his senses told him as he thought they may be deceiving him. This ‘stubborn’ view can be related to each of the ‘glasses’ we wear where they put constraints on how we view the world.

Agreeing with Kant, I believe the way we perceive everything around us incorporates the mind and our sensations. Both factors influence the way we see things. This is evident in an encounter with new people. When my friend and I meet a new person (i.e newcomer to the school) for the first time, the newcomer may be speaking exceptionally loud to those around him. My friend and I would interpret his behavior in a very different way. My friend may say that the newcomer is rude and impolite to speak in such a loud voice beside his peers, where on the contrary, I would say that he is not trying to be rude but it is just because he is born with a loud voice. As each of us are different and experience different things, everyone one of us therefore are special and unalike. All this goes back to the fact that every human being wears their own set of ‘glasses’ that control how we see the world.

To conclude, I think we are influenced by those around us and we mix and shape all the factors with our own thoughts to have our unique perception. We all have our own set of ‘glasses’ (not only one) that give ‘the’ view of our world. Perhaps if we are able to ‘take off’ these glasses, we will be able to see the ‘true and real’ world that we have been living in.

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.

Assignment 2 - Senses and Reasoning

What the “red-tinted glasses” metaphor meant to me was that our senses and perception of things could be altered. Literally, the book suggested that Sophie had seen her surroundings only in shades of red as the filters on the tints had not allowed her to see any other color.Empiricists (such as Locke and Hume) believed that our knowledge came from our senses, they felt that the human interaction with different objects gave us the knowledge we have. Perhaps they would believe that a knife is sharp after touching the blade and that sugar is sweet after tasting it but there is too, reasoning in the mind behind these such as knowing that sugar is perceived as sweet because of taste buds on our tongue.

If we had conducted the red-tinted glasses experiment on empiricists from the past, it would be interesting to see their reaction as I feel that unless they can honestly answer that they believe the world is indeed red, they would find the flaw in their belief. Could they really believe in the things they did without reasoning in their brain at all? Although it is fair to say that if an empiricist baby boy was born with red-tinted glasses attached to his face, then he could say that the world is red, this would be because his perception of his surroundings directly changed the ‘knowledge’ inside his mind, causing the child to believe that his idea of the whole world to be red to be perfectly fine (because he hasn't seen the world without the glasses stuck on his face). Hence here I also suggest that it takes both of the beliefs of the empiricists and rationalists to make sense as their ideology individually had their own flaws.

This is perhaps why Kant was neither an empiricist or a rationalist; the flaws of empiricists being that there is always a reasoning process in our mind before we accept the ‘facts’ fully and rationalists only being able to have their reasoning and ‘facts’ through at one point of their life, interacting with objects through their senses.

One example would perhaps be the idea of the world being round, in olden times where people believed the world to be flat because of their vision of the landscape. Should a rationalist had shown up in that time period and suggested that the world was round, how many people would have been able to accept that? This is because this would challenge the inner ‘rationalist’ part of the empiricists, making them question: ‘Wouldn’t the things drop apart if the world wasn’t flat?’

To conclude, it is felt that the red-tinted glasses was a simple experiment for Sophie to quickly realize how neither empiricists or rationalists had their ideas fully correct and that senses contributes to our reasoning but there is also a ‘rationalist’ part which supports the things perceived in the senses of a person as the quote from Alberto Knox shows: “So you cannot say the world is red even though you conceive it as being so”.

"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.

The Tinted Red Glasses - Chloe Chan

The tinted red glasses illustrates Kant’s view of how we enquire knowledge of the world, which is actually a combination of both the Rationalists’ and Empiricists’ analysis of the subject. Rationalists argued that the way we perceive the world is due to our reasoning in the “mind” whilst the Empiricists believed that we learn thorough our sensations where “the world is exactly as we perceive it”. By Kant’s combination of both Rationalists’ and Empiricists’ opinion, Kant articulates that we do learn through our senses, however the way we perceive the world after sensing it varies as there are “decisive factors that determine how we perceive the world”, meaning that there are things (aspects) that will influence how something is perceived .
The tinted red glasses effectively explains the connection between sensing and interpreting something. If the sensation is limited itself (a factor determining how we see the world), the interpretation will also change according to how something is sensed. The tinted red glasses is a factor which determines how we view the world, and it represents a limited ‘sensation’ (which affects the interpretation) where you can only see shades of red, this sensation will then lead to a different interpretation of the world to what it is supposed to be in reality. As a result of the limited sensation we “conceive” that the “world is red” which is not true. This clearly shows us how we can get the wrong view of the world.
The process of stereotyping can be applied into Kant’s theory. For example stereotyping of people from an ethnic group is a factor which can affect our reasoning and because stereotypes are generalisations they are limited ‘sensations’ (ideas). From the stereotypes we hear and learn, we begin to see ethnic groups as having the same characteristics rather than as individuals. These rigid perceptions created of ethnic groups are of course incorrect.

If we were to remove our 'glasses' would we all see the same world?

Red lenses act as a filter – that is in the optical sense they transmit red light but absorb all others. In this way our perception of the world is altered. We see everything that reflects red light as red. Therefore although our eyes have not changed in their ability to perceive colour, the filter has removed reflections of all other colours and therefore our cognition of the world has changed. So Kant believed that the empiricists were not wholly correct in believing that the senses were the source of all our knowledge of the world, but that the mind could be modified in its the interpretation of perceived phenomena. Thus he believed that the rationalists were only partly correct in their assertion that our knowledge of the world lay solely in the mind.

Kant believed that the mind was conditioned by two forms of ‘intuition’ which he called ‘time’ and ‘space’. The mind is molded by these two forms of intuition and could provide radically different answers to the same phenomenon. Here he used the example of Copernicus ‘The New Astronomy’ discovery that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa as was previously thought. Here was a completely different interpretation of the same phenomenon – that of day and night. He called it the Copernican Revolution.

One such similar example is that of the barnacle goose. Early naturalists could not explain why the birds disappeared and then reappeared the following season. In order to explain this perceived phenomenon – for they had no understanding of bird migration – their rational explanation was that the birds arose or were born from the barnacles that were found on the seashore, for the barnacles appeared to them to be embryonic birds with ‘beaks’. Hence they were called goose barnacles. Here their perception was moulded by their understanding that the arriving birds must have been born – as that was their intuition in time and space.

In conclusion, I believe the red-tinted glasses are just a metaphor to show how our perspective of life can be altered and changed. These “glasses” could represent, say, our upbringing, education or our class. If we were to remove these glasses would we all see the same world? I believe we wouldn’t as our perspective doesn’t depend wholly on our senses, but also our mind.

Assignment #2 "Red-Tinted Glasses" by Anna Chadwick

Rationalists, such as “Descartes and Spinoza”, believed that all human knowledge “lay in the mind” and depended on reason while the empiricists, like “Locke, Berkeley and Hume”, believed that our knowledge of the world around us is conceived through our senses. When Sophie puts the “red tinted glasses” on, her mind knows that everything thing she had just seen is not “pink” or “crimson” but is simply perceived that way through her senses. It is because her mind knows that her world has not just “become red” that I believe more in the ideas of the rationalists. If I were to put on a pair of “red-tinted” spectacles, I would know that I was still in the same room but simply with a colour filter between me and my surroundings.

However, Alberto goes on to say that we are “not able to take off the ‘glasses’ of reason”. Therefore, we must react to events in exactly the same way as others. This automatically implied to me that senses are the only reaction that can be altered to change the way we see something. However, after further insight, I realised that each individual has their own unique “reason”. I understand reason to be the thoughts, beliefs and ideas that we have been brought up to believe. For example, the Hitler Youth group in 1930’s Germany were brought up to believe that they were a superior race. Therefore, this supposed information coloured their view of all other races. They would react differently to those who had an international based upbringing.

Having been presented with this metaphor, I now imagine that everyone has both a pair of ‘reason glasses’ and ‘senses glasses’. However, it is how thick each of the lenses are that affect how you live your life. In my case, I depend very much on what I know and have been brought up to believe. Therefore I think I have a thick “reason” lens but a thin “sense” lens. However, my mother is a culprit of seeing things ‘through rose-tinted glasses’. This saying means that you are a person who filters out the bad qualities of an event or memory to preserve the good aspects of the experience. This quality implies that she does not listen as much to her reason. Being reliant on the rose-tinted glasses allows our better judgement to be tested and we become fully dependant on our senses, abandoning our reason.

In conclusion, I believe that wearing “red-tinted glasses” changes our perception but our reaction is mostly dependent on our individual reason. Unlike Alberto, I do not believe that the glasses “limit the way” we perceive reality. They simply provide a new angle at which to view a situation.

Assignment #2: The question of glasses-Yixia Gu

In “Kant”, Alberto performs an experiment by telling Sophie to wear the “red tinted glasses”, and she surprisingly sees everything around her, the table, the chair etc. in red or crimson. He uses the result of the experiment to state that the glasses limit our cognation and perception of the world because although we can declare that the world is red, it is only our own unique perspective. And so it comes down to the matter of immediate sensation or how our brain interprets and rationalizes the information we receive. Everyone is definitely allowed their own viewpoint, and that’s why philosophy embodies so many beliefs such as empiricism, the belief of science and proofs, and rationalism, the emphasis on believing only what we perceive.

Descartes for example stuck to his theory of a rationalist that “we cannot accept anything as being true unless we can clearly and distinctly perceive it” Due to his influence by mathematics, he wanted everything to be clearly laid out for him to analyse and probe into, just as a math question does. He doubted and questioned everything, which I feel is a good quality only if we don’t become cynical as to even doubt our own “senses”, because otherwise we would have nothing to rely on. Other philosophers such as Hume discarded reasoning as the answer to why we behave as we do, instead insisting on our emotions and sentiments. I feel that both the predetermined ability to reason, the distinction between the right and the wrong, and our inner feelings are what make a ‘balanced’ perception of the world.
In addition, as the book mentions, Kant was the medium of both empiricism and rationalism, and on aspect of his theory I find particularly interesting: the question of how the world began from nothing, and even if it had a beginning. Reason cannot be applied here, because it wouldn’t make sense anyway. What about the natural phenomenon of wind? We can understand how wind was created, and what impact it has, but cannot see it. Nevertheless, we still know that it does exist because we place our trust on it.

As ordinary people, or even potential philosophers, many of us today see the world through not only “red” glasses, but a kaleidoscope of colours. Although this might sound very strange, we accept many forms of perceptions and assumptions from different subjects in school and a multitude of external events and happenings. As the young generation, we see and think about may or may not be refined, even as adults we may be still searching for a reality, trying to find a satisfying answer.

It is my view that we choose our own glasses, and how we perceive the world. It is like going into an optic shop, (regardless of how well our eyesight is): first we choose the type of frame, which is our basic ideologies, and then we pick our lens, which is the tool of perception. The only difference is that we are the opticians; no one else determines the lens we see out of. However, we may be influenced by others and/or refine our perception, but towards life’s big questions everyone’s insight is different-we wouldn’t be unique otherwise.