Young Philosophers' Conference

YOUNG PHILOSOPHERS’ CONFERENCE (3rd February 2021)

by Diana Stoian Y12

All Year 12 Philosophy students had the chance to take part in a conference with other schools from all over the country. It was a great opportunity for us, as not only students but also young philosophers. It provided us with an insight into modern and intellectually stimulating topics such as conscience, Philsophy and Feminism and also Law and Politics.

Religion is a fundamental part of many of our lives; whether we are religious believers ourselves or not, religion will always be part of our lives involuntarily through laws or education. We had the opportunity to look at religion from other perspectives, discussing in detail Spinoza and his account on religion. Is religion a social construct or is it just a desire to find answers to questions we do not understand? These are questions we ask ourself very often as young philosophers, studying arguments from all around the world from many famous names such as Aquinas or William James.

We had attended 3 different sessions throughout the day, where we heard people read out papers and others responding to them. We had a chance to personally challenge the speaker at the end with our own questions. Not only did we gain new knowledge, we were able to relate these sessions to our curriculum which helped us improve our argument techniques when it comes to writing our essays.

Personally, I truly enjoyed the last session of the day, one which I chose to attend as it sparked my deep interest, and it was that of Law and Politics. Although the topics discussed could be considered somewhat intellectually challenging, I gained a personal satisfaction out of it as it led me to question myself on the topics being discussed. The way morality and law were combined to create an engaging argument taught me that anything is possible when you put your mind to it, and especially if you are interested in learning.

To be able to see what other students my age could come up with when faced with these arguments has deepened my passion of applying philosophical knowledge to daily situations. Overall, today’s experience was impressive and educational and each one of us left that conference with at least one new piece of knowledge.