History of Modern Philosophy 2009


"Wow...I didn't know Cheerio's could make your heart explode. I'll go put that on the Internet right now." (Wyma demonstrating how, according to Hume, the more "wondrous" something is the more likely we are to believe it.)


"It's different, and very, very bad." (Distinction between actual pain and just lack of pleasure."

History of Modern Philosophy 2009


"Oh it's the best of all possible worlds...moron." (Hume's take on Leibniz.)


"First of all...first of all it is loud." (A sudden, and indeed quite loud, noise outside the classroom caused Wyma to semi-deviate from his original point.)


"Who were the morons out in California...I mean it's hard to single out morons in California."

History of Modern Philosophy 2009


"So what do you get, math and logic...whoo!" (What Cartesian doubt leaves you.)


"Everyone gets up, walks to the door, cries a little bit, and then leaves." (After learning all about skepticism everyone still believes the door, not the wall, is the best option for egress.)

History of Modern Philosophy 2009


"Oooh, what is this thing (sniffs marker) smells groovy." (Wyma demonstrating Humean experience for the class.)


"You can't think the Pacers are going to the play-offs when they are not (makes a very unhappy face.)

Ethics: A Day of Subjectivism

“Charity is good!!”
--Wyma then performs a ballerina leg lift

“Ethics is not a theory about practice. Ethics is a theory in practice.”

“If I was the god of my own universe, then I wouldn’t have bursitis.”

“There is no God. Huh. This might not be a happy thing.”
--Wyma speaking for Atheistic Existentialism

“Swear the Presbyterian Church is the best and then I will take you out of the thumb screws.”
--Describing a coercive manifestation of subjectivism

History of Modern Philosophy 2009


"We're going to talk about two things...okay, maybe three."


"Oh man, that apostrophe should just not be there."

History of Modern Philosophy 2009
(Editor's comment: Everyone has that certain person whom he/she just cannot stand. Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Rush Limbaugh, insert your worse enemy here, whoever, you just don't like them. For Wyma, that individual would appear to be Jean Jacques Rousseau; hence the nature of these following quotes.)


"You could do a reading response on Rousseau, or you could do one on someone with a brain."


"Honestly, I hate this guy, and it's not even because he's French."


"Gah, I just...oh he is so wrong. (Wyma, near the end of class, had apparently just become sick of Rousseau.)

History of Modern Philosophy 2009


"How frustrating, to be thwarted by what doesn't exist" (Wyma explaining how, according to Berkeley, material objects don't really exist.)


"And I'm like Berkeley, dude, prefiguring Einstein by a century and a half...not bad. (Regarding how Berkeley came up with the idea of 'no absolute space' first.)

History of Modern Philosophy 2009


"Suppose someone says to you, 'I love you,' yeah, I know, it's never going to happen."'


"I've got arrows going everywhere." (Editor's note, indeed yes, the whiteboard was pretty covered with them.)

"For something to be true it doesn't have to be 'God accurate.'" (Editor's note, yet another phrase that I've now heard outside of class.)