What philosophical question is burning in your mind? What topic won’t let you go, wakes you from your dreams, occupies your thoughts on the tram and in the bathtub? Tell us about it and win 100 Swiss Francs in our new essay competition.
You are free to choose your question: it can be a "big" one (who am I? what may I believe? why is there something rather than nothing?), a "small" and specific one, a personal one, or one of societal relevance. Your text doesn’t have to answer the question — you can refine it, analyze it, develop it further, contextualize it, explain it, or reformulate it.
The goal of this exercise is to collect interesting questions and thoughtful reflections on them — thoughts that help others who are interested in the question to think for themselves and make some progress.
Participate in the Essay Competition!
To participate in the competition, you must first either log in with your profile or create a profile. You might already have one — if you're unsure, check our long list.
Then click on the pencil icon at the top right and write an article. Use your question as the title, and in the "Pre-Headline" field, write "Essay Competition BA Questions". Then write your text in the different text blocks, add one or more images (see the how-to for that), optionally attach an audio or video file, and click "submit".
It would be great if you could also write something about yourself on your profile — for example, where you study and what else interests you about your studies.
We are very proud to announce that we have now a rating system for articles in place on the portal. While we take inspiration from the essay competition submissions for our Gurzelen "bench" project (see below), the official winner of the competition will be determined by the rating the submissions receive from our users.
On this page, we will provide a list of all submissions to the competition, and announce them on the landing pages and in the July newsletter as well. During the month of July, all portal users who have registered a profile and logged in, will be able to rate the competition entries (only once per article, obviously).
The article who receives the highest average rating before the 1st of August 2025 will be declared the winner and its author will receive 100 CHF.
How it Works
The Little Bench Project on the Gurzelen Grounds
On the Gurzelen grounds, where we have our office, an innovative, cross-disciplinary social project is taking shape: across the entire site of the former football stadium, collaboratively built benches will be created. These benches are meant to offer elderly people in the neighborhood a chance to participate in the vibrant social life at Gurzelen. The benches will be placed in shaded spots and invite people to pause, reflect, and contemplate. To offer inspiration, we are creating small plaques (similar to those that sometimes bear the names of donors or municipalities), each featuring a short, accessible philosophical question and a QR code leading to a portal page.
On this portal page, those who scan the QR code will find inspiration to support their thinking about the question: ideas for possible answers, refinements of the question, suggestions for engaging and accessible literature, related or relevant questions, and more. The goal is to offer people from all walks of life — young and old, with or without an academic background, with or without prior experience in philosophy — the opportunity to discover the joy of philosophical thinking for themselves and to explore the other offerings of the philosophy portal.
The submission deadline for this competition (as well as the two related competitions for BA and MA students) has been chosen so that, before the summer holidays, we can hold a workshop with some of the children attending school on the Gurzelen grounds and some of the neighbors who may use the benches. In this workshop, we will discuss the submitted questions and test how accessible they are. If you're interested in participating, please get in touch!
