Minnesota Open 2009 Discussion

[Theory Of The Leisure Flask]

Really? So these writers and editors have an absolute stranglehold on this part of the distribution, and all we can do is thank God it's not worse? I submit that there is at least one thing that could be done about this: continuing to tell these people, over and over and over again, not to write on topics that are never studied in any philosophy department in the english-speaking world, unless it's some off-the-beaten-path 1500-hundred-student liberal arts college where the philosophy faculty is comprised of a presocratics expert whose degree is in classics, a Roycean pragmatist fuddy-duddy, and a Marxist-feminist-queer-"cultural" theorist with a comp lit doctorate who has never tackled a single philosophical problem of note, but sure can bitch a lot about oppressive metanarratives and the tyranny of heteronormativity. I think if we just appeal to the community's sense of fair play, and say "look: do your best to fill the philosophy distribution with stuff you would encounter studying in a philosophy department here in the U.S.", that should go a long way.

If we're "appealing to the community's sense of fair play", then we still need to find a place for these academics somewhere, even if you don't wish to call that place "philosophy".

In this case, though, it seems that an interesting and important part of the intellectual discipline is being underasked, meaning that in gameplay terms, we have a big, untapped space of interesting answers. I certainly have found philosophy of mind interesting enough to do some independent reading about it... and I'd be happy if David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, Daniel Dennet and others of their discipline and time period came up more often.

Chalmers, Nagel, Dennet and their ilk all come up at approximately 10 zillion times the frequency they did five years ago. This is of course a good thing.

[The Atom Strikes!]

I hypothesize that most quizbowl players don't actually learn philosophy from a philosophy class. Rather, they learn it from one of the following sources:

(1) A history class
(2) A social science class (especially an intro or core social science class)
(3) from independent reading ("hey that book looks cool, I'll read it when I'm not reading for class!")
(4) packets

I think this is true for most other categories too, btw, except maybe science. If this hypothesis is true, then I think it follows that we frankly shouldn't give a damn about what is taught in Philosophy classes and some other standard is called for.

In this case, though, it seems that an interesting and important part of the intellectual discipline is being underasked, meaning that in gameplay terms, we have a big, untapped space of interesting answers. I certainly have found philosophy of mind interesting enough to do some independent reading about it... and I'd be happy if David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, Daniel Dennet and others of their discipline and time period came up more often.

There's nothing wrong with submitting a third bonus part or lead-in clue about something you think should come up more.

I never said that I wasn't planning on doing that...

[Cheynem]

There was a sports tossup on _Philadelphia_. I seem to recall a sports bonus at some point, but maybe I'm wrong.

While I find "joke" tossups usually not funny, I wonder if they might serve an useful way for editors to get some humor out of their system while still preserving the sanctity of a match. The bee tossup might have worked better in that regard. Again, I guess it's an open tournament, so certain things are assumed.

If I manage to outlast the current Minnesota contingent and somehow edit Minnesota Open myself in the future, I will continue to exercise this philosophy of writing on things that amuse me. BEWARE! BEWARE!

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Magin bafflingly was able to convert La Wally.

[Sir Thopas]

Magin bafflingly was able to convert La Wally.

Yeah, he was totally talking about it in the chat room a few months ago. He almost wrote a tossup on it for Gaddis II.

[Not That Kind of Christian!!]

Magin bafflingly was able to convert La Wally.

Brendan also converted it.

[naturalistic phallacy]

Now, to comment on the set itself once more: I thought the Gilbert Ryle and Two Concepts of Liberty tossups, and the Reasons and Persons/Derek Parfit/Thomas Nagel, The Conscious Mind/David Chalmers/Rene Descartes, and The Refutation of Idealism/Principia Ethica/A Defense of Common Sense bonuses were just terrific. Densely written, interesting and important clues, thoroughly relevant answer selection - who could complain? In fact, that's one of the aspects I found most satisfying about these questions - the lack of excess verbiage and overall density of clues

I am glad you liked those questions, especially Two Concepts of Liberty and the Moore bonus (both of which I wrote as an attempt to include stuff by Berlin and Moore that isn't asked about as much). I don't know where my reputation for liking exclusively postmodern continental thought comes from; while I do find it interesting, there are many other things I enjoy learning about and writing. I do agree that there needs to be a plurality of people involved in influencing a category's answer selection, since no matter how diverse a writer attempts to be, there will always be elements of bias.

Regarding the observation that there were a few more religious philosophy questions in the set, they were written/included in an attempt to diversify the religion distribution.

[Mechanical Beasts]

I'm glad you liked the Ryle, particularly; that was mine and not terribly different (I think one clue was added towards the beginning) from the one I submitted.

[marnold]

Hey, I'm totally a philosophy major at a university with a philosophy department that probably would live up to Doug Yetman's standards, so I feel confident saying: philosophy at this tournament was well-distributed and we don't need to make it a point to shake it up in quizbowl as a whole. Maybe some of the continental school stuff comes up too often, but hardly criminally so - those writers are really studied, the material is cool and it has lots of memorable things that makes writing questions about it pretty easy. I wrote the Reasons and Persons bonus almost exactly as it appeared in the set and I'd be fine with things like that coming up more, but I think it'd be unfortunate if that comes about by driving continental stuff to the margins.

[theMoMA]

Doug, only about 4/4 of what you label "continental" is actually continental in a useful sense of the word. Stuff like revivalist Neoplatonism and al-Ghazali is not continental in any sense other than that those people lived on the continent of Europe. "Continental" almost always means from the 19th century onward. Also, any definition that's lumping people like Nietzsche and Kant into "crazy Europeans that come up way too much" is just not useful. They are certainly in the continental tradition, but they are also foundational authors that should be coming up all the time.

[dyetman89]

Doug, only about 4/4 of what you label "continental" is actually continental in a useful sense of the word. Stuff like revivalist Neoplatonism and al-Ghazali is not continental in any sense other than that those people lived on the continent of Europe. "Continental" almost always means from the 19th century onward.

Believe me, I'm quite aware of the definitions of the terms I'm employing - note that I grouped these answers under the heading Clearly Postmodern/Continental/"World". So, uh, the label remains completely valid.

Also, any definition that's lumping people like Nietzsche and Kant into "crazy Europeans that come up way too much" is just not useful. They are certainly in the continental tradition, but they are also foundational authors that should be coming up all the time.

I agree with you - and that's sure as hell not my definition! I hope I haven't given the impression that I believe Nietzsche and Kant ought to be relegated to the back of the philosophical bus - my lists were constructed to illustrate the considerable divergence between the representation of continental and analytic philosophy here, and what is the case in most philosophy departments in the U.S., so I just lumped everyone in their proper spot - I was not suggesting that everything grouped therein was unimportant or illegitimate. Certainly Nietzsche and Kant stand pretty tall, and their philosophically important works ought to come up left and right, I agree with you completely.

I'll answer Chris', Bruce's, and Marnold's criticisms a bit later; right now I'm aching for a nap.

[No Rules Westbrook]

It's hardly surprising that people are able to convert La Wally, by the way. It's come up...hell, it's in my (now fairly outdated) notes! I love saying things like that.

Secondly, I'm all on board the "explode the 20th century philosophy canon" train - because I think there are a ton, simply a ton, of reasonably important dudes and works out there that can be good tossup or bonus answers. And heavens knows I love tossups on third-tier thinkers and their works. But, it's absurd to pick bones with extremely influential pre-20th cent "continental" philosophy...any tournament should make a place for a small sprinkling of ancient and medieval-type philosophy, plus a healthy dose of pre 20th cent continental stuff.

[Gautam]

I'm interested in knowing what everybody thought about the history distribution at this tournament. I am especially looking for comments on things which may have been vastly underrepresented compared to other tournaments, or categories which seemed systematically weaker than others. For instance, Jerry is right about there being several tossups on "polities" in the world/other distro; there were tossups on Brazil, Singapore, Srivijaya, Bolivia, Morocco, Median empire, Safavid, and Dehli Sultanate, which does seem somewhat excessive.

For me, history was kind of was the "category I dreaded writing" because I'm not really a good history player and stuff; I believe my fellow editors would agree with this assessment as well.

[Cheynem]

I thought the history was pretty good, with the major flaw being too many "polity" tossups, as well as like an added preponderance of dynasty/empire ones. There were some really interesting tossups on important historical figures who don't seem to usually be tossup subjects, like J.J. Astor and J.W. Powell (I wrote the latter). I also wrote a bonus which I liked but may have been way too hard on the _Surrender of Fifth Avenue_.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Srivijaya

Oooh! I just taught my freshmen in high school about the Srivijayan Empire (along with the Khmer and Pagan)! In which packet is this tossup???

[Auks Ran Ova]

14. Inscriptions from Sabokingking indicate that leaders of this polity decentralized their power through a network of datus, and the earliest record of its existence is found in the works of the Chinese monk I-Tsing. The reign of Samaratungga saw this polity undertake its most notable construction project, and late in the eleventh century CE, it moved its capital to Jambi . It gained control over the Malacca and Sunda straits by the end of the eighth century and tolled the shipping through those channels, and its tributaries included the Tarumanagra and Sailendra dynasties, the latter of which erected the temple complex at Borobodur. For 10 points, name this Sumatra-based maritime empire which came to control most of Southeast Asia and the center of the Indonesian archipelago from its capitals at Palembang until its decline in the thirteenth century.
Answer: Srivijaya

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Cool, thanks Rob. Good question! Hopefully my kids would answer it just after the power mark.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

I want to lodge a complaint about the Manhattan tossup that called it a polity. Usually I'm annoyed by polity questions because they can occasionally be too vague for a specific answer (that California tossup), but this time not only is it too vague, I don't believe that Manhattan at all fits the definition of a polity, thus throwing me completely off the right track until the end. Unless I learned wrong, Manhattan is not a self governing body in any sense, since it's part of the city of New York.

[Cheynem]

Manhattan has a borough president and a district attorney, so under the vague definition of "polity" (a government of some sort), yeah, I guess it is a polity. It definitely is if any of the clues referenced Manhattan's days as a colony. I assume the argument from the editors would be "Calling it _this borough_ would have made it too easy too fast." That said, I found that question rather perfunctory and uninteresting.

[Sir Thopas]

Especially since many of the clues were referring to the times when it was coterminous with New York City, I think it's fine to call it a polity. At any rate, to this day, it's coterminous with New York County.

[Matt Weiner]

Clue quality and ordering at this tournament was 99% good, and I heartily congratulate Minnesota on breaking the usual pattern of quizbowl and having a complete set ready to go at something that was not the last minute.

I thought that, overall, this tournament abandoned the "hard-end tournament on the calendar" idea of last year and just went nuts with difficulty. I have no idea why things like "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" and Mohammed Naguib are tossups now. If anything, this probably helped/pleased my team, but I don't know if it's what some of the attendees were expecting.

Let's stop asking questions about bees.