In this chapter, two attitudes of our conception of the world are explored. One of them is the rationalist’s point of view, and they believed that the basis for all human knowledge lay in the mind. On the other side are the empiricists, believing that all knowledge of the world proceeded from the senses.
Through the medium of the Red-Tinted glasses, Alberto Knox is illustrating Emmanuel Kant’s belief – that neither the rationalists nor empiricists are correct. The glasses are representative of our reason, that they ‘limit the way [we] perceive reality’ through our senses.
In my opinion, Kant was correct in drawing the link between our senses and reason by stating that our senses are altered according to our reasoning. To take it one step further, I also believe that our reasoning (and its development) can also be altered according to the way we perceive the world. This can come about as the result of factors such as our upbringing, ethnical background, the people we choose to associate with or our experiences. Therefore I believe that reasoning and sensory perception cannot exist as separate processes but rather, operate simultaneously.
The Red tinted glasses can also be considered our personal prejudices and bias. Many claim that the key to open mindedness is to ‘take off these glasses’ and view the world with an untainted perspective. However, is it not being open minded to accept that we may never be open minded? Despite putting aside our individual reasoning and taking off the glasses, there is still a limit to how much we can conceive of the world as we are looking through tinted eyes; being only human after all. I suppose we simply have to do the best with what we’re given.
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3 comments:
I acquiesce with how the glasses "can also be considered our personal prejudices and bias", having written that myself.
However, by doing the best with what we're given and leaving on those glasses we know are limiting us, we are crawling down further into the warm furs of the rabbit. Should one not at least attempt to do something about the situation? Or wonder how we can? It's just a simple matter of taking off a pair of glasses. If "being human" means allowing our limits to control what we can conceive, then we are merely characters in a book created by an author. We have no freedom. But we are all entitled to our freedom as "human beings", as we not?
I agree with your view that reasoning and sensory perception cannot exist as separate processes. Because just like you said, although I support Kant's idea that what we perceive is altered by our reasoning, I think its not only that: the influence and shaping works the other way too. In other words, our reasoning can be shaped by what we “sense”.
This, in my opinion, is in fact the biggest way in which we learn to lose our stereotypes and biased judgments. If it weren't for our reasoning being altered by what our senses tell us, discrimination would probably still be continuing today.
Take the biased ideas that existed between the Chinese and the Japanese, for example. Many Chinese people inevitably used to hate or at least dislike the Japanese people right after the war. (And I guess the Japanese people didn't really like the Chinese people as well at that time.) But nowadays, we see Japanese and Chinese people getting along fine (maybe except the small incidents like the textbook problem). I have many many good Chinese friends, and I don't think any of them hate me (hopefully)... and even if any of them did, it wouldn't be because of my nationality.
There are two aspects of this example that show how things that people perceive shape their reasoning:
1. The Chinese people saw their family, friends and even themselves suffering because of what the enemy did. This observation led the people to catagorise the Japanese people as "the bad guys", and influenced their "reasoning" by making them think that “all Japanese people are mean, cruel and horrible”. So if they met a Japanese person in the streets at that time, they would immediately assume that that Japanese person must be a terrible person.
2. But the fact that this stereotype has diminished in many cases shows that this "reasoning" was further influenced by another observation, for example seeing/meeting Japanese people that weren't that mean after all. This would have influenced their reasoning, which would have now be changed from "all Japanese people are bad" to "not all Japanese people are bad, although the Japanese people that fought in the war were bad".
You can probably see that this improvement in their relationship would have been impossible if our “senses” didn’t influence our “reason” in the same way as our “reason” influenced what we perceived. And there would have been no stereotyping in the first place if the influence didn’t work in this direction as well.
(I hope this example I gave illustrated the point in the way you see it, Andrew - sorry if my interpretation of your idea is different from how you meant it to be..)
So what this leads me to believe is that the only way in which we can allow our tainted glasses to become less tainted, or not taint them in the first place (or, from your perspective, realise the fact that we can never be completely open minded), is to allow our “senses” to influence our “reason” in reasonable ways.
"To take it one step further, I also believe that our reasoning (and its development) can also be altered according to the way we perceive the world."
Thats what I meant..that our reasoning can be shaped by our senses. Maybe perceive was not the best word to use in that situation, but look what time my blog was posted.
Thanks for the great examples :D
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