tba

• Topic: One of the four topics listed above.
• Language: German, French or English. (Italiano: Purtroppo, non abbiamo volontari nella giuria in grado di valutare un saggio in italiano o il budget per una traduzione professionale. Stiamo cercando di cambiare questa situazione in futuro, ma per il momento hai queste possibilità: 1. Scrivere il saggio in tedesco, francese o inglese. 2. Inviere il saggio in italiano e accettere che venga tradotto con intelligenza artificiale.)
• Length: max. 1000 words
• Submission: Submit as a PDF file by email to philosophy(at)olympiad.ch. Do not include your name, school etc. anywhere inside of the document to make anonymization easier. Submissions after the deadline will not be considered.
• Sources: You do not have to do research or refer to any external sources for this essay, but if you do, you must cite your sources.
• AI: We trust you to keep this competition fair and fun for everyone. If you want to use AI to brainstorm or look for sources, you can, but use it as a starting point to write your own text, not to write a text for you or copy paste entire parts of your essay. In the next rounds, you would have to rely on yourself since you will write an essay with a time limit, without knowing the topics in advance, under supervision. There is nothing to gain from letting AI write your essay for you now.

TIPS AND EXAMPLE ESSAYS

We recommend that you to join the online workshops (see below).

The workshops are not mandatory, but recommended, unless you already participated last year. You don't have to have your camera on or speak if you don't want to, you can also ask questions in the chat.

• 17.10., 20:00-21:00: Essayschreiben (auf Deutsch). Informationen und Tipps über das Essayschreiben bei der Philosophie-Olympiade. https://unibe-ch.zoom.us/j/62587108510 Meeting-ID: 625 8710 8510
• tba: Rédaction d'essais (en français). Informations et conseils sur la rédaction d'essais lors des Olympiades de philosophie.
• 25.10., 13:00-14:00: Overview of philosophy (in English): Epistemology? Aesthetics? Metaphysics? WHAT?! If you don't have philosophy class or are confused by the many domains of philosophy, join for a crash course. At the end you can also request essay writing tips if you missed the previous workshops or need them in english. https://unibe-ch.zoom.us/j/67852369074 Meeting-ID: 678 5236 9074 

Our jury, consisting of volunteers of the Swiss Philosophy Olympiad, philosophy students, philosophy teachers and former participants, will evaluate the essays anonymously. Please understand that because we are a small team of volunteers and there are many essays, we cannot give any individual feedback at this stage. We will inform you by email in early December whether you qualifed for one of the semifinal spots. Feel free to save the date:

AGENDA

Yes. The essay evaluation criteria are more about how you argue than how much you know.

If you want to learn more about philosophy, here are some recommendations.

We recommend that you join the online workshops.

At the Philosophy Olympiad, we have participants from different language regions of Switzerland as well as international schools. We also have limited resources and everthing is organized by volunteers. So sometimes we communicate only in English for the sake of ease, which is also the case at the International Philosophy Olympiad. However, our volunteers of course speak German and French too and you can always use your preferred language to communicate with us both in writing and during events! You can also write your essay in German, French or English (except in the International Philosophy Olympiad) and the essay topics are available in German, French and English.