In the summer of 2024, I played professional youth soccer for Ursus Warszawa in Poland, and I was racially abused by 200 supporters who questioned whether I belonged on that pitch. Not because of my lack of skill, but because it was clear I wasn’t ethnically Polish. As a 16-year old, I didn’t know what to make of the situation other than to keep playing and refuse to give the abusers satisfaction. It made me annoyed. It made me mad. But most significantly, it made me curious. At the bottom of the barrel, what was the real reason that the abusers in Poland felt the way they did, beyond blind hate?
During my second week back in the U.S. is when I can say my passion for philosophy began. First, I read Paul Gomberg’s “Patriotism Is Like Racism,” which explores ethnic identity and nationalism. Those ideas naturally led to me to philosophy of religion and moral epistemology, where I felt I might find answers to my original question. But, my interests didn’t stop there.
To fully engage with my new interests, I thought, ‘Who better to go to than leading philosophers?’ While I hadn’t interacted with senior academics prior, I felt that professors would be kind enough to speak to me, and I was competent enough to ask meaningful questions. This led me to start the Inference Studios Youtube channel, where I’ve spoken with individuals like Graham Oppy, David Christensen, Duncan Pritchard, and Joshua Knobe.
It seemed to me that almost everyone around me had the same questions I did. I remember discussing whether God existed during lunch daily, our own mini-conferences during class break on whether logic was absolute, even discussing the meta-questions about ethical normativity; and my peers had never read a single paper.
Philosophy is beautiful to me for that reason: those genuinely curious about reality love philosophy too, regardless of their experience. I made Inference Studios as a way for those curious minds to find a direct connection to the academic world. Our community is built around a simple idea that isn’t always obvious: academic philosophy is now accessible. The papers leading thinkers discuss exist online for anyone to discuss as well. We have attempted to facilitate the searching process by having a community-built forum of papers and frequent group discussions under varying categories in philosophy.
Today, I am working on the Inference Studios International Philosophy Tournament as something I wish existed when I was first studying philosophy. A way for those curious underclassmen to directly reach academic feedback and connection, while still being competitive. As well as it being free to enter, and there being a $1000 prize, the event is serving as an official beneficiary partner of Show Racism the Red Card, an anti-racism organization in soccer, which will receive a $1000 donation.
Philosophy in academia has often been remained behind institutional walls: university courses, academic journals, and conferences that most young people never encounter. The tournament is my attempt to lower those barriers. By pairing students who have never taken a formal philosophy course with feedback from PhD researchers and professors at leading universities, we create the kind of mentorship that usually requires being enrolled somewhere prestigious. A high schooler in rural Virginia or an undergraduate at a community college deserves the same access to serious philosophical engagement as a student at Oxford. The tournament is free for those reasons, because anyone curious enough can enter and win.
The way the event is organized is as single-elimination debates on varying philosophy propositions, with arguments and responses evaluated by philosophy professors and PhD candidates. The current judging panel includes Dr. Max Baker-Hytch (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford), Professor Duncan Pritchard (Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of California Irvine), and Kimberly Ramos (PhD Candidate of Epistemology, Brown University). The propositions include varying topics in philosophy: free will, meta-ethics, consciousness, skepticism, and theism as the final. The dates of this tournament are across three weekends in August from August 8th to August 22nd, hosted on a Discord stage run by me.
If you are an undergraduate, a high-school student, or under the age of 22, I invite you to participate in this philosophy event. I also invite graduate students or faculty members to serve as judges. As participation grows, we will need additional judges for the remaining topics on free will, meta-ethics, and consciousness.
The specific format of the debate, moderation rules, and the specific propositions are included in the document on the registration form here: https://forms.gle/
Regardless of whether you participate or serve as a judge, I hope you will tune into watch the debates and engage with the philosophy community on Discord: https://discord.gg/TH2tXzSg7x
As my story continues to change, I always find myself asking: how can I make academic philosophy more accessible to those curious like myself? The Inference Studios International Philosophy Tournament is my answer for now. I hope to see you there.
Elijah Anteneh
Elijah Anteneh is a junior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia. He is the founder of Inference Studios, a philosophy YouTube channel and online community hosting frequent group discussions and featuring interviews with leading academic philosophers including Graham Oppy, Duncan Pritchard, Joshua Knobe, and David Christensen.
