APO 2016 Results & IPO Ghent

The cover of the student & faculty schedule.

Contrary to what you might expect, French, German, and Spanish are the official languages of the American Philosophy Olympiad (APO). This is because the International Philosophy Olympiad (IPO) requires essayists to write in a language other than their own national one. In the USA, our de facto national language is English. The judges of this essay contest are teachers and professors of language and philosophy. For the 2016 APO contest we received essays in all three APO official languages. French essays have been among the winners in years past and although German essays have been received they have not yet been among the winning essays. In 2016 the judges chose two essays from among the Spanish essays to represent the USA in Belgium at the IPO.

The winners of the APO 2016 were Caroline Norfleet and Anna Stoneman. Caroline is from the Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, NY (see what OFS write about her on their website: http://www.oakwoodfriends.org/news/242-ofs-senior-to-compete-in-international-philosophy-olympiad). Anna is from the Stanford Online High School in California (https://ohs.stanford.edu/), but Anna lives in Wisconsin. Their prize was to represent the USA in Ghent, Belgium and to spend 4 days with more than 90 students their own age who study philosophy in 44 countries around the world.

Here is a film I have just received (June 2017) reflecting on the IPO2016 in Ghent, Belgium. Enjoy it: http://www.ipo2016.be/film/

For the results of the IPO 2016, you may go to the IPO website, click on the following link or type it in on your browser: http://www.philosophy-olympiad.org/. At this site you will also find information about IPO 2017, the 25th IPO, which will be held in the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands at the end of May 2017.

APO Results Coming Next Week

Sometime during the week of April 11th you will see the results of APO 2016 in this Blog. For the moment, here's a short newspaper clip from my Bangladeshi friend, Salim Miah, about the IPO 2015. The article is from the "Dhaka Tribune." I especially like the unique and delightful description of philosophy and the rather intimate protrayal of the experience that our student friend and young plhilosoher from Bangladesh had. That was last year in Estonia, but it was very similar for all the students in Estonia and it has been this way for more than two decades now. Enjoy the article: Dhaka Tribune article about IPO Estonia 2015.

This year Salim and one or two of his new students will be joining us in Belgium. We'll be gathering in Ghent, as you may already know, with participants from more than 40 countries.

Watch for our big news next week.

Hilary Putnam Dies at 89

A major American philosopher, Hilary Putnam, died yesterday. He was much more than an analytic philosopher at Harvard. Here is a link for more about Putnam and his obituary: http://dailynous.com/2016/03/13/hilary-putnam-1929-2016/. And here's a short article by Martha Nussbaum about the stature of Prof. Putnam in a spirit of reflective obituary in a Huffpost blog:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/hilary-putnam-1926-2016_b_9…

Wittgenstein -- A New Publication!

This is very exciting 'nous' for Wittgenstein scholars, readers, students. A publication of lecture notes from one of Wittgenstein's own students (Yorick Smithies) at Cambridge University in the transition from the 1930s to the 40s. Go to the "Daily Nous" blog at http://dailynous.com/2016/03/08/new-wittgenstein/ for the latest info.
Wittgenstein was one of (both) the greatest philosophers (and antiphilosophers) of the 20th century.

See the APA Blog about the APO & IPO

Here's a link to my first blog post for the American Philosophical Association. It's about the 2016 APO High School Philosophy Writing Contest with a little background about both the APO and the IPO. Click on the APA Blog logo below to take a look.

A photo from the closing ceremony of the IPO in Lithuania in 2014.

New Due Date -- APO '16 Essay

New Due Date

29 February 2016

As you know, the APO '16 winners will represent the USA in Ghent, Belgium.

 

We have been requested to extend the due date of the APO '16 Essay Contest. After consultation this weekend, we have determined that we can extend the due date until Monday, 29 February 2016.

If you send in your essays by US Postal Mail, it must arrive no later than Monday, 29 February 2016. If you submit by e-mail we must receive your e-mail with your essay attached also on Monday, 29 February 2016. All the details of the contest are contained in recently past posts in this blog.

February 29th only comes around once in four years, let's take advantage of it.

Best of luck to all of our young philosophers!


*The UG logo is copied from the UG website.


 

New Publication in Diálogo Filosófico on AP-CP

My latest publication is an article that has just come out in time for the new year in the Spanish journal of philosophy called Diálogo Filosófico. My article is on pre-college philosophy in America. The article is written in Spanish. If anybody is interested in publishing it in English, I'll ask the journal for permission, then translate it. The journal lists my name on the cover as J. Aloysius Murphy. The website is http://www.dialogofilosofico.com/.