History of Philosophy II

Today I discussed a variety of responses to Kant's argument that there is a structure to the rational human mind that enables each person to perceive the world and all rational humans share in that structure. The question immediately asked is what is the nature of that structure and what causes it? I quickly mentioned Gestalt, Eric Kandel (an important contemporary), Freud, Yalom (an important contemporary), Jung, and Joseph Campbell, and Viktor Frankl. Each can be viewed as attempts to explain what structures rationality either biologically or culturally. As a quiz question I asked the classic: do you help the woman in the car being attacked by three guys? What is your moral duty? And, what do you think you would actually do. We then moved on to consider Mary Wollstonecraft in relation to others like Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, and George Elliot.