Philosophy as a competition

wanderingorca80 said:Here’s an example of a problem from this year's regional logic competition—one where there's only one clear-cut solution:

Quincy:

Here is the sentence from Spinoza’s *Ethics* (Axiom I): Everything that exists—it’s either self-contained or nested within something else. Period. For each of the five sentences provided—labeled a) through e)—determine its relationship to... Understood. If the offered sentence carries the exact same weight as the target—meaning it expresses the identical core message—then it counts. Write "True" in the right column—but only if the sentence provided is actually contradictory. Given the provided sentence, write ⊥! in the right column. If it isn't identical— If you find a contradictory thread, just drop a slash or an exclamation point in the right-hand column—it’s how we handle the "or" conjunction. Interpret the given sentence as an inclusive disjunction! Something that exists—not within itself, but as a component of something else entirely. If something doesn't exist within itself—if it lacks its own internal essence—then it’s merely a component of something else. It exists only by proxy. A thing simply doesn't exist—not within itself, and certainly not in anything else. Something inherent to the self is also present within something else—it’s an extension, really. If a thing is truly itself—and nothing else—then it exists entirely within its own essence. Simple as that.

__________________________

Let’s talk about the circle.

Yeah, exactly... logic. Nobody was questioning that the answers have to be one-way streets...

P.s. isn't logic supposed to be law? Kind of miss Smith's frantic pacing in front of the chalkboard 😢

Anonymous said:I wanted to jump in here and share some personal insight from my experience competing in this year’s National Philosophy Championship. I think there are a few points already mentioned that really resonate with what I went through on the circuit.

First off, we have to ask ourselves: does a philosophy competition even make sense? If we’re going to hold one, what’s actually the best way to test a young person's grasp of the subject without turning it into a mindless memory test? The goal should be to spark genuine critical thinking and push them to actually develop their own unique ideas. Right now, though, the way these competitions are being run is a far cry from that ideal. Honestly, the current setup is pretty absurd—it’s not just ineffective, it’s actively counterproductive.

First, you’re handed a list of terms you’re expected to have mastered beforehand. You’ve got to grind through the assigned reading just to wrap your head around five additional concepts they throw at you last minute. Here’s the kicker: you have exactly 30 minutes to write out all ten definitions. It essentially turns into a high-stakes memory test where you’re just praying nobody else has faster handwriting than you. I mean, what kind of "intellectual depth" can you actually demonstrate when you only have three minutes to explain complex philosophical ideas like freedom, existentialism, or the philosophy of history? It isn't a test of how much you understand philosophy; it’s a glorified speed-writing competition. You’d think this would be the most objective part of the exam—the part with fixed criteria that your answers actually need to meet. But nope. Different professors grade different terms, so your scores are all over the place. To make matters worse, there’s zero transparency. You can't even see how they graded individual concepts because the professors just scribble everything down on their own private grading sheets.

Regarding the essay portion, I honestly feel like we aren't being given nearly enough time. Trying to brainstorm a concept, map out the content, and build a solid structure for a high-quality philosophy paper in just 90 minutes feels impossible—especially when you consider that students at the National Philosophy Olympiad get four full hours to work. Then there’s the issue of grading subjectivity, which we've already debated on this forum. It makes zero sense that one grader can give an essay a 6 while another gives that exact same paper a 36 out of 50. When those kinds of massive discrepancies happen, the essay gets sent for a third reading, which then results in some arbitrary score—say, a 10. Then they take the average of that 10 and the 36, leaving the student with a final grade of 8. It begs the question: if the process is inherently subjective anyway, why are we tossing out a grader's opinion just because it doesn't align with the other two? Wouldn't it be much more logical and fair to have every single essay read three times and simply take the arithmetic mean of all three scores?

I also have to mention the absolute nonsense on this year’s reading list. We’ve got one piece by Nietzsche—which is actually decent enough—but then there are two by Heidegger. Seriously?! I know there are people out there who worship the ground he walks on and swear his work is the absolute pinnacle of philosophy, but honestly? Aside from the fact that I find his whole "truth-setting-itself-through-art" shtick to be a massive distraction from what actually matters, I think most people would agree that he's just way too dense for someone just starting their journey into philosophy. He's definitely not exactly "inspiring" material for a beginner.

Honestly, the absolute worst part about the philosophy competition wasn't even the exams—it was the total lack of organization. It was amateur hour from start to finish. They were being stingy with everything, down to the literal sheets of paper. We spent five hours there without so much as a glass of water, let alone a sandwich or a soda. Then there was the complete chaos regarding the rules. Nobody realized until the last minute that you were actually allowed to write your essay in a foreign language using a dictionary. Because of that oversight, at the national level here in the States, they wouldn't let us use a dictionary for the one-hour essay, yet at the international Olympiad, where you get four hours, it’s perfectly fine. Talk about inconsistent. But the icing on the cake? The grading and the results. The math was just straight-up broken. I saw someone's score published as 16.5 + 22 = 48.5 on the official list. Are you kidding me? On top of that, the results were supposed to be out in 17 hours, but they didn't post anything until 9:00 PM. Then we had to wait until 9:00 AM the next morning just to see the list, and we didn't get the final scores after all the appeals until 2:00 PM while we were sitting on the bus heading home. At this point, I’m convinced one single person read all 44 essays by themselves. It would have been faster that way, and honestly, probably a lot fairer. Besides, it feels like one guy is basically running the whole show anyway.

To put it bluntly: it’s a total mess—chaotic, disjointed, and completely pointless. 👎

Yeah, it was exactly like this five years ago too. The absolute dumbest part is that they assign the terms ahead of time. It turns into this mindless rote memorization where nobody is actually thinking. There was a girl sitting right in front of me, frantically repeating the definition of freedom under her breath just seconds before the exam started. 🤣

Anonymous said:I wanted to jump in here and share some personal insight from my experience competing in this year’s National Philosophy Championship. I think there are a few points already mentioned that really resonate with what I went through on the circuit.

First off, we have to ask ourselves: does a philosophy competition even make sense? If we’re going to hold one, what’s actually the best way to test a young person's grasp of the subject without turning it into a mindless memory test? The goal should be to spark genuine critical thinking and push them to actually develop their own unique ideas. Right now, though, the way these competitions are being run is a far cry from that ideal. Honestly, the current setup is pretty absurd—it’s not just ineffective, it’s actively counterproductive.

First, you’re handed a list of terms you’re expected to have mastered beforehand. You’ve got to grind through the assigned reading just to wrap your head around five additional concepts they throw at you last minute. Here’s the kicker: you have exactly 30 minutes to write out all ten definitions. It essentially turns into a high-stakes memory test where you’re just praying nobody else has faster handwriting than you. I mean, what kind of "intellectual depth" can you actually demonstrate when you only have three minutes to explain complex philosophical ideas like freedom, existentialism, or the philosophy of history? It isn't a test of how much you understand philosophy; it’s a glorified speed-writing competition. You’d think this would be the most objective part of the exam—the part with fixed criteria that your answers actually need to meet. But nope. Different professors grade different terms, so your scores are all over the place. To make matters worse, there’s zero transparency. You can't even see how they graded individual concepts because the professors just scribble everything down on their own private grading sheets.

Regarding the essay portion, I honestly feel like we aren't being given nearly enough time. Trying to brainstorm a concept, map out the content, and build a solid structure for a high-quality philosophy paper in just 90 minutes feels impossible—especially when you consider that students at the National Philosophy Olympiad get four full hours to work. Then there’s the issue of grading subjectivity, which we've already debated on this forum. It makes zero sense that one grader can give an essay a 6 while another gives that exact same paper a 36 out of 50. When those kinds of massive discrepancies happen, the essay gets sent for a third reading, which then results in some arbitrary score—say, a 10. Then they take the average of that 10 and the 36, leaving the student with a final grade of 8. It begs the question: if the process is inherently subjective anyway, why are we tossing out a grader's opinion just because it doesn't align with the other two? Wouldn't it be much more logical and fair to have every single essay read three times and simply take the arithmetic mean of all three scores?

I also have to mention the absolute nonsense on this year’s reading list. We’ve got one piece by Nietzsche—which is actually decent enough—but then there are two by Heidegger. Seriously?! I know there are people out there who worship the ground he walks on and swear his work is the absolute pinnacle of philosophy, but honestly? Aside from the fact that I find his whole "truth-setting-itself-through-art" shtick to be a massive distraction from what actually matters, I think most people would agree that he's just way too dense for someone just starting their journey into philosophy. He's definitely not exactly "inspiring" material for a beginner.

Honestly, the absolute worst part about the philosophy competition wasn't even the exams—it was the total lack of organization. It was amateur hour from start to finish. They were being stingy with everything, down to the literal sheets of paper. We spent five hours there without so much as a glass of water, let alone a sandwich or a soda. Then there was the complete chaos regarding the rules. Nobody realized until the last minute that you were actually allowed to write your essay in a foreign language using a dictionary. Because of that oversight, at the national level here in the States, they wouldn't let us use a dictionary for the one-hour essay, yet at the international Olympiad, where you get four hours, it’s perfectly fine. Talk about inconsistent. But the icing on the cake? The grading and the results. The math was just straight-up broken. I saw someone's score published as 16.5 + 22 = 48.5 on the official list. Are you kidding me? On top of that, the results were supposed to be out in 17 hours, but they didn't post anything until 9:00 PM. Then we had to wait until 9:00 AM the next morning just to see the list, and we didn't get the final scores after all the appeals until 2:00 PM while we were sitting on the bus heading home. At this point, I’m convinced one single person read all 44 essays by themselves. It would have been faster that way, and honestly, probably a lot fairer. Besides, it feels like one guy is basically running the whole show anyway.

To put it bluntly: it’s a total mess—chaotic, disjointed, and completely pointless. 👎

Back in the day, Camus was the big name here. 😁 And Marx. 🤣
But honestly, even more ridiculous was the fact that the essay topics were assigned in advance. And—surprise, surprise—there were students who had the professors practically hand them a cheat sheet with everything written down, which they then just memorized. A complete disaster.😁

hm, seeing this firsthand:
1. how can you expect kids—seniors in high school, just a month and a half away from graduation and picking a college (which includes entrance exams)—to actually engage with authors like Heidegger, Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle... and more importantly, to actually *get* them? and it’s not even just that; despite the fact that 98% of them are encountering philosophy properly for the very first time only five months ago (not to mention the questionable quality of how it's introduced in American schools), these kids are expected to be fluent in philosophical jargon. they're expected, for instance, that if they tackle nihilism, they have to list and explain all the major philosophers who dealt with it??!?

Wake up! nobody is blind to the fact that this is effectively a disgrace to philosophy!! there are maybe 50 of us, everyone struggling to grasp what hermeneutics or Heidegger's fundamental ontology is, while some don't even know what ontology means in the first place!! yeah!! and it doesn't stop there; people head off to university without even knowing the difference between being and existence!!

..and then there are the essays... the subjectivity is unreal. one professor gives a 5, another gives a 1! (well, at least one of them usually knows whose essay it actually is, or rather, who mentored that specific student). oh, I won't even get started on the "teacher's pet" culture.. basically: just drop in four quotes and compose it nicely like a "spring cleaning" project.. okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but still...

*here is one example from this year: an innovation: the option to write in English. you write in English, and the graders (two of them) admit they don't understand/comprehend (lack of English education??!?) what you're writing, so they grade your concepts incorrectly. and, naturally, there's no chance for a re-grade.

so much for the disgrace and what it represents..

..oh, right, and those oral exams, those quasi-debates... please... a discussion over a beer is more philosophical than that. here, it's just about who can act the smartest..

there... and I think instead of competitions where everyone who was pressured into it shows up—people who have never even heard of Scheler or Habermas—we should be organizing symposia for young people actually interested in philosophy. it's easier for us to express and build our own perspectives, and gradually study certain works and authors, rather than being handed six authors and a tiny slice of each... in that case, you don't really know anything about them (besides those two mandatory "memorize-this" quotes) and it doesn't feel remotely relevant to our lives...

Alexander Hernandez32 said:Yeah, it was exactly like this five years ago too. The absolute dumbest part is that they assign the terms ahead of time. It turns into this mindless rote memorization where nobody is actually thinking. There was a girl sitting right in front of me, frantically repeating the definition of freedom under her breath just seconds before the exam started. 🤣

Back in the day, Camus was the big name here. 😁 And Marx. 🤣
But honestly, even more ridiculous was the fact that the essay topics were assigned in advance. And—surprise, surprise—there were students who had the professors practically hand them a cheat sheet with everything written down, which they then just memorized. A complete disaster.😁

**it was like this last year, and it's like this this year... what sucks most is you finish the competition and the rankings, and you think maybe you'll find someone to actually debate philosophy with... but nope... like I said: out of 50 people, there's three of us... and in the end, you're just the freak sitting there, drinking and talking to people in their 50s, because the rest of the philosophical youth are busy looking for the club... =P gross!!!!!!!!!

*I'm rooting for a symposium for young people, obviously something less formal**

It isn't really like that now, though, is it? Don't students pick their own topics on the spot?? I think only that Luciano guy from some high school in New York City knows about that, if I remember correctly... wasn't he the one who used to draft everything or something...??!???

nimbletinker said:**it was like this last year, and it's like this this year... what sucks most is you finish the competition and the rankings, and you think maybe you'll find someone to actually debate philosophy with... but nope... like I said: out of 50 people, there's three of us... and in the end, you're just the freak sitting there, drinking and talking to people in their 50s, because the rest of the philosophical youth are busy looking for the club... =P gross!!!!!!!!!

*I'm rooting for a symposium for young people, obviously something less formal**

It isn't really like that now, though, is it? Don't students pick their own topics on the spot?? I think only that Luciano guy from some high school in New York City knows about that, if I remember correctly... wasn't he the one who used to draft everything or something...??!???

We used to hang out at the beach. Our professor would lose it if we even tried to review anything there—his whole theory was that we were just there to have fun. Usually, he ended up being more wasted than the rest of us combined. 😍

nimbletinker said:**it was like this last year, and it's like this this year... what sucks most is you finish the competition and the rankings, and you think maybe you'll find someone to actually debate philosophy with... but nope... like I said: out of 50 people, there's three of us... and in the end, you're just the freak sitting there, drinking and talking to people in their 50s, because the rest of the philosophical youth are busy looking for the club... =P gross!!!!!!!!!

*I'm rooting for a symposium for young people, obviously something less formal**

It isn't really like that now, though, is it? Don't students pick their own topics on the spot?? I think only that Luciano guy from some high school in New York City knows about that, if I remember correctly... wasn't he the one who used to draft everything or something...??!???

Back then, they gave us five potential topics ahead of time—about a month in advance. Those were the only ones that mattered. At the actual competition, you'd draw one of those five on the spot and write about it. That specific year, this was the one pulled:

"History is not devoid of religion or prophets, nor of gods." Albert Camus. Analyze the implications of this thesis.

Alexander Hernandez32 said:We used to hang out at the beach. Our professor would lose it if we even tried to review anything there—his whole theory was that we were just there to have fun. Usually, he ended up being more wasted than the rest of us combined. 😍

Back then, they gave us five potential topics ahead of time—about a month in advance. Those were the only ones that mattered. At the actual competition, you'd draw one of those five on the spot and write about it. That specific year, this was the one pulled:

"History is not devoid of religion or prophets, nor of gods." Albert Camus. Analyze the implications of this thesis.

Walpurgis, you’re misremembering. A month prior to the national finals, there was the regional competition—not the announcement of the national prompts. Even then, they picked one from a set of five. The topics weren't released beforehand; they were decided right there at the contest. It worked the exact same way for the nationals. They’d pull one topic from a pool of five that nobody had seen coming.

If the judges actually stick to the rubric, there's no way a student can just dump a pre-packaged essay prepared by their mentor into the slot—the essay has to actually address the specific prompt provided. Besides, the prompts and instructions have become significantly more sophisticated in recent years, which makes that kind of cheating even harder. You can't just wing it anymore; they expect you to meet the specific requirements of the task, at least based on how things have been handled lately.

wanderingorca80 said:Walpurgis, you’re misremembering. A month prior to the national finals, there was the regional competition—not the announcement of the national prompts. Even then, they picked one from a set of five. The topics weren't released beforehand; they were decided right there at the contest. It worked the exact same way for the nationals. They’d pull one topic from a pool of five that nobody had seen coming.

If the judges actually stick to the rubric, there's no way a student can just dump a pre-packaged essay prepared by their mentor into the slot—the essay has to actually address the specific prompt provided. Besides, the prompts and instructions have become significantly more sophisticated in recent years, which makes that kind of cheating even harder. You can't just wing it anymore; they expect you to meet the specific requirements of the task, at least based on how things have been handled lately.

Look, my memory is actually pretty reliable. I agree that there was a regional competition a month prior. But what happened was that a few days after the potential topics were announced—there were five of them—one was drawn during the actual competition. It was the same with those 20 questions from the "theory" section; out of 60 possible questions, they were assigned ahead of time.

This happened five years ago. I was right there, so there isn't really any room for misunderstanding here. And, just for the record—I didn't forget, I'm just a woman. 😛

Alexander Hernandez32 said:Look, my memory is actually pretty reliable. I agree that there was a regional competition a month prior. But what happened was that a few days after the potential topics were announced—there were five of them—one was drawn during the actual competition. It was the same with those 20 questions from the "theory" section; out of 60 possible questions, they were assigned ahead of time.

This happened five years ago. I was right there, so there isn't really any room for misunderstanding here. And, just for the record—I didn't forget, I'm just a woman. 😛

I can't say for certain on this one, though. It’s entirely possible there were actually 10 terms used during the competition. I can double-check if it’s really that big of a deal. 🙂

Anyway... since we're all gathered here and the topic is already live, it might be a good idea to make the most of this thread while we have the chance.

I’d love to see everyone jump in and contribute—whether you're one of the competitors, someone with some feedback to share, or just want to drop a bit of advice for the group.

Come on, folks, let's get moving! We don't want to miss the window on this. 🙂