International Philosophy Olympiad

The International Philosophy Olympiad (IPO) is an International Science Olympiad, a philosophy competition for high school students. It is organized under the auspices of the FISP (Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie) and supported by UNESCO.

The International Philosophy Olympiad was founded in 1993 by philosophy teachers from Bulgaria (Prof. Ivan Kolev), Romania (Prof. Elena Florina Otet), Poland (Prof. Władysław Krajewski), Turkey (Prof. Nuran Direk) and Germany (Prof. Gerd Gerhardt). It started with three participating countries and has now about 40 countries participating.

Students competing in the Olympiad are given four hours to write a philosophical essay on one of four topics given. The topics are provided in the four official languages of the IPO - English, Spanish, French and German - and the student must choose to write one of these in a language other than his/her own; that is, a native French speaker would not be allowed to write in French.

There are five criteria of evaluation.

Evaluation proceeds in three stages:

The selection and training process varies from country to country.

In Estonia the selection process, which was initiated by philosopher Leo Luks, consists of two stages. At the first stage, students write an essay at home in their mother tongue. That means, Russian language for Russian minority is also accepted. The national jury (5 members) chooses 10 best essays for the next stage. In the second round (4 days long), finalists spend firstly 2 days together where they participate in different lectures and workshops. After that, the final competition begins, which consists of 4 different parts: 1. 4-hours essay in foreign language, as it is in IPO (maximum 30 points) 2. Test of informal logic (10 points) 3. Test of central philosophical notions and theories (10 points) 4. Oral 1 to 1 debate about one philosophical problem (10 points) Two best students represents the country at the IPO

In Germany there are three stages: a) The best two or three essays of a class (written in German) are sent to the jury (until December, 6th); the good essays will be honoured by a certificate. b) The best 26 essay-writers are invited to Muenster (four days in February), where they write again an essay (in English or French) and hear and discuss two philosophy lectures. c) The two best essay-writers in Muenster represent the country at the IPO (in May).

The IPO selection procedure in Hungary is closely related to and based on the National Students Competition in philosophy, which is embedded in a wide range of National high-school competitions organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. All the competitions (mathematics, etc.) are organized in 3 levels, over January - April. The competitions in philosophy involve 11th and mainly 12th grade students, altogether approx. 300 students nationwide. The first, school-level round is based on testing knowledge in history of philosophy (thus emphasizing the relevance of the curricula and maturity criteria). Students with sufficient score are eligible to enter the 2nd round. The second round is about writing an essay, students are free to select one topic out of four. The best papers are selected by a jury of Academics, which consists of Faculty staff members invited by the ME, who will invite the students to the finals, i.e. an oral examination. Hungarian is the only official language all through the national competition levels. The IPO Selection invites the best 30 students after the 2nd round. Under the supervision of the Hungarian Philosophical Society, a new Jury are being invited who will propose the 4 quotations, and they should evaluate all the papers. Students will take part at the IPO selection where all the IPO rules and regulations are respected: essay-writing, bi-lingual dictionary, timing, evaluation criteria, languages, etc. Usually approx. 15 students take part at the IPO selection and the authors of best 2 papers are proposed to participate at the IPO. Students receive assistance from their teachers to participate at the competitions, however the Philosophical Youth Camps and the „Philosophical tea-house” movement (inspired by IPO colleagues in Turkey) may also help students to gain and deepen their interest in philosophy.

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