Aosta Valley student Giulia Pession, 19, from Saint-Christophe, is the new world champion in philosophy. A third B student at the High School of Classics, Music and Art in Aosta, she won the title in Lisbon, beating 87 other finalists from 42 nations. A special mention, however, was awarded to Giovanni D'Antonio of the "Torricelli" classical and scientific high school in Somma Vesuviana.

"The test," Giulia Pession recounts, "presented four tracks: a fragment of Heraclitus, a passage by Kant from the 'Critique of Judgment,' another by Hannah Arendt from 'The Banality of Evil,' and a quotation from the Chinese philosopher Laozi." Giulia chose Heraclitus: "I started with a quote from him: 'Although the logos is common, most people live as if they had thoughts of their own.'

I organized my text on the fact that there is no common logos and that people think differently because they are all different. This is the great challenge facing democracies. It was then very interesting to see how, from the same outline, each participant argued very differently, and to compare ourselves on different cultural assumptions. I did not expect that it would go so well, I was already very happy to have been able to participate in the final." 

"Philosophy," the student adds, "is very useful for developing one's own thinking. We also need to reason that science would never have arisen without philosophical questions: philosophy is by no means oxymoronic to science; on the contrary, it continues to be a fundamental point of comparison for science itself."