First Essay Round 2024/2025

Out of the 1123 participants of the very first Preliminary Round of the Philosophy Olympiad, 161 were invited to submit a short essay for the First Essay Round on one of the following topics:

1. “It is difficult to define knowledge, difficult to decide whether we have any knowledge, and difficult, even if it is conceded that we sometimes have knowledge to discover whether we can ever know that we have knowledge in this or that particular case.” (Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind, Lecture 13)
2. "Humanism in the sense of militant atheism encounters an immediate and very obvious paradox. (…) the outlook is stuck with the fact that on its own submission this evil, corrupting, and pervasive thing, religion, is itself a human invention: it certainly did not come from anywhere else. So humanists in this atheist sense should ask themselves: if humanity has invented something as awful as they take religion to be, what should that tell them about humanity? In particular, can humanity really be expected to do much better without it?" (Bernard Williams, The Human Prejudice)
3. Can we preserve what it means to be human while integrating technology in our bodies?
4. Are there things one shouldn’t be able to buy with money?

For the first time, participants were offered to join of two videocalls on October 2 and 26, where they received essay writing advice specific to the criteria of the Philosophy Olympiad and further information on the Philosophy Olympiad.

Additionally, the Science Olympiad's equity fund made it possible to hold an in-person meeting aimed primarily at French-speaking participants on November 16:

Rencontre du premier tour d'essais à Bienne

On November 20, the Philosophy Olympiad hosted an interdisciplinary evening activity on the moral responsibilities of scientists at the Physics Olympiad camp.

Some of the camp attendees were also First Essay Round participants.

"Schopenowler", the mascot of the Philosophy Olympiad, recieved a warm welcome by the mascots of the Mathematics Olympiad.

108 out of 161 invitees submitted an essay, an unexpectedly high turnout. The anonymous evaluation of the essays by a jury of high school teachers, university students and former finalists began on November 23 during SPO Day, the annual meetup of current and potential volunteers of the Philosophy Olympiad, and continued throughout the following week.

These are the authors of the 55 essays which were selected for the semifinals on Thursday, January 16 in alphabetical order:

Switzerland

Principality of Liechtenstein