The metaphor of 'red-tinted glasses' was to show that our perception of the world is limited by what we can sense. As such, what we conceive is not always reality. When Sophie put on those red-tinted glasses, she said that everything was exactly the same, except all red. This is exactly what Knox was trying to explain; although we can still see everything and have knowledge about the outside world, it is biased and restricted to the conditions we live in, meaning that there might be some important information that we missed out and do not know. In this case, the colours that Sophie can/cannot see.
However, what if we applied this to ourselves? It might be that our senses are limiting us in some way, that we cannot perceive the world as it really is. Does this mean we can never make definite judgements about the world around us?
When I look into the sky, I can see that it is blue. But does this mean I can assume that the whole universe is blue just because I conceived it to be? No. Because we all know the the sky only appears to be blue because of the atmosphere, and how it alters the light from the sun. This tells me that what I can perceive from my senses is not neccessarily what things are in reality.
That is why, as Kant suggest, we can only formulate our own ideas about what the world is REALLY like using the rationalist and empiricist ideas. Still, as humans, we can never learn everything about the world we live in, because we're always limited to our senses.
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4 comments:
Hi Boris,
I agree with your idea that humans are very limited creatures and that what we conceive may not always be reality. Afterall, we are humans and we do make mistakes. Furthermore, how can we be ensured that what we conceive to be "reality" is really the truth? Although the majority may visualize the same things; maybe all of us humans are simply wrong.
Hey Boris,
I like what you said in the second paragraph. The fact that you said it might be OUR senses that are limiting us explains why people have all these different philosophical ideas. However, it is not certain that it is our senses that is limiting us, there might be other factors, such as our environment...etc. This is different to our senses because I think our senses and our knowledge combine together to give us a personal opinion or view of what we think and see.
I agree with what you said about us humans are limited to our senses and we do not learn everything in the world. I like the example of the sky and how we see the sky is different to reality. I also agree with Lori that senses are not the only factor which is limiting our senses, but there are others such as the way we live and the environment in which we live in.
I definitely agree with that we see everything but its all restricted by many things. Come to think of it when you said preception of the world is limited and not always the reality is true
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