Best Way to learn PSS?

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AdiyaSivakuma
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Best Way to learn PSS?

Post by AdiyaSivakuma »

I have recently decided to learn PSS, but I am struggling to find the best way to learn them properly. Does anyone have any advice?
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Re: Best Way to learn PSS?

Post by Ehtna »

In my experience, philosophy and social science are two of the most finicky subjects to study for in quiz bowl, simply because they usually require a larger baseline understanding of the ideas that are talked about in questions than other categories. It's much easier to, say, read a Sparknotes summary of To Kill a Mockingbird than it is to try and understand what on earth a Sparknotes summary of Descarte's Meditations on First Philosophy is even trying to say.

Unless you stumble upon something that sounds really interesting or fairly short, I would generally advise against reading philosophy if you're only at an introductory level with it. Many philosophical texts and essays tend to be mind-numbingly dense, and I personally find it really hard to read much of anything unless I'm in a very specific headspace for it. Social science, however, is usually more approachable and understandable. Many psychology and anthropology books, like Ruth Benedict's or Malcolm Gladwell's books, are very readable, as are most of the essays and articles in almost all disciplines of the social sciences. So if you find something in your social science journey and you find it interesting, I'd take the plunge and go right ahead and read it. Just avoid reading primary sources for philosophy.

To a certain extent, you can get away with carding for both subjects. It's not at all a bad idea to put the ideas of philosophers down on flashcards, mainly because it forces you to understand what Kant is trying to argue and then put it into a clue that you can put on a flashcard. And at the high school level, you can do fairly well with social science just by carding clues for all ~50 answer lines that Protobowl has. In that vein, I've also found question writing for philosophy and social science more helpful and rewarding than writing questions in any other category for similar reasons: it forces you to understand the ideas behind thinkers and concisely turn those ideas into clues. If I want to study a new thinker, I try and make my end goal writing a quizbowl question centered around them so that I can get a good grasp on their thoughts and convey those thoughts back in a way that's meaningful and shows comprehension of what I read.

For outside resources, a good introduction to philosophy can be found at CrashCourse's YouTube channel and their series on philosophy. All of their videos provide overviews of famous philosophical topics that can get you in a good headspace for learning and digging further. For further exploration, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy provide in-detail summaries of the thoughts of many thinkers and ideas and can be a great way to do a deep-dive into all sorts of philosophical subjects. However, these are both fairly comprehensive, and as a result most articles are fairly long and complex and can be hard to follow, so use it at your own risk. And if you're a podcast person, The History of Philosophy Without any Gaps is an ongoing series providing a very comprehensive overview of, well, the history of Western philosophy. The creators also have a companion podcast on the history of Indian philosophy, and are just beginning another podcast on Africana philosophy. All of these can be great resources for gaining a good understanding of most of the older philosophers and their ideas.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a good localized place for information and research on topics asked about in social science. That's mainly because it has the hefty job of combining dozens of academic disciplines into one category! For these, I usually find researching clues from past questions is one of the most helpful methods of finding your own outside resources to use. Other than that, textbooks can be particularly helpful for specific areas of social science you're researching. You can find good economics and psychology textbooks (among other disciplines) online for free, so if there's a subsection of social science that you're particularly keen on researching, I'd say look through those. Otherwise, resources for the category aren't very well localized.

I hope this helps, and I wish you good luck on studying!
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Re: Best Way to learn PSS?

Post by Zealots of Stockholm »

I'm sure the rest of Ethan's post is good, but Malcolm Gladwell is not an academic sociologist and I'm sure anyone who included him in a sociology question would be (rightly) ridiculed.

[he is a compelling speaker though]
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Re: Best Way to learn PSS?

Post by Ciorwrong »

Zealots of Stockholm wrote: Fri Jul 24, 2020 2:04 pm I'm sure the rest of Ethan's post is good, but Malcolm Gladwell is not an academic sociologist and I'm sure anyone who included him in a sociology question would be (rightly) ridiculed.

[he is a compelling speaker though]
Gladwell is a complete joke and should stop showing up in easy tournaments. He also published dubious information for big tobacco companies while probably getting paid by them. Dude is a pop science fraudster and should stop getting attention from anyone--let alone quizbowlers.

For social science, I'd highly recommend reading the introductory collegiate text books and AP review guides. Questions in this category are rightfully drawing more on class material and basic ideas instead of who the social science writers of 2009 thought was important. The high school canon is incredibly janky but you will gain a very good foundation if you know all the material that shows up in say AP Psych, AP Macroeconomics, AP Microeconomics, etc. Additionally, some high school questions clue "government" as a social science so make sure you are aware of all the US Amendments, and general principles of government. I don't write questions like this but, for whatever reason, civics is written like this in some high school tournaments.

The 100/freshmen level books for anthro and sociology are also solid but make sure you know the silly people quizbowl loves to overclue who are almost absent from the academy. I think it's very dangerous to only rely on past questions in this category as it's very volatile and different authors like to clue different things from different sources. A strong foundation across all fields of social science is almost impossible but it's certainly doable to be solid at almost every field. Quizbowl tends to avoid highly technical questions from, say, computational linguistics or econometrics so I would ignore those until upper collegiate levels. I can give many book recommendations for econ (MWG or Varian <3) but Kenrick's social psych book is pretty good and I can look up some mostly physical anthropology text books if there is interest.

I also vehemently disagree with not engaging with philosophical primary texts. It's especially strange to hear a comment like that from someone who is editing PSS for an upcoming tournament. Regardless, most of my best philosophy buzzes have come from things I have read or have a deep personal interest in and look up secondary literature, commentaries, etc. When you make a habit of reading dense works, they get easier over time. Some authors are more readable than others as well. I find Schopenhauer, Spinoza and Hume to be much more readable than Hegel or Kant for example. Most analytic philosophy will be extremely difficult to digest without a strong foundation in formal logic but a foundation in formal logic is easily achieved. I think colleges use something like Language, Proof and Logic (punny name) for this purpose.

Sparknotes is an awful philosophy source and I would severely hazard against it. When I was in high school, I listened to the Partially Examined Life podcast and it's a decent starting point. There are a lot of other youtube resources as well for different thinkers but Crash Course is pretty mediocre. My general opinion is that you should learn all the pivotal philosophical figures first (Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, de Beuavoir, Sartre, Camus, Russel, Wittgenstein, Quine, Rawls is a preliminary list and is by no means complete) and then learn about the second-tier people like Schlegel, Schopenhauer and Searle. Even people in the second tier are rarely mentioned at the high school level so I would focus on nailing the content of all the first tier philosophers. A book like From Socrates to Sartre is a decent starting point and will immediately get you points. I also have a Chinese philosophy book I've been reading through that allowed me to find some deep Shang Yang clues for MWT if people want to know about that kind of stuff.

Sorry for rambling but I hope this was helpful for someone >__<
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Re: Best Way to learn PSS?

Post by Carlos Be »

Ciorwrong wrote: Fri Jul 24, 2020 2:37 pm I also vehemently disagree with not engaging with philosophical primary texts. It's especially strange to hear a comment like that from someone who is editing PSS for an upcoming tournament.
I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say that reading primary texts will not help you get very many points in high school quizbowl. Except for a few lead-ins, pretty much every clue that is notable enough to ask at high school will be present in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and/or some of the other sources Ethan mentioned.

In general, you should only read a philosophical text if you're actually interested in what the text has to say. If you're reading the text just to get points, you won't be interested enough to focus on what it's saying and you probably won't get very many buzzes from it.
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Re: Best Way to learn PSS?

Post by Ciorwrong »

Carlos Be wrote: Fri Jul 24, 2020 7:13 pm
Ciorwrong wrote: Fri Jul 24, 2020 2:37 pm I also vehemently disagree with not engaging with philosophical primary texts. It's especially strange to hear a comment like that from someone who is editing PSS for an upcoming tournament.
I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say that reading primary texts will not help you get very many points in high school quizbowl. Except for a few lead-ins, pretty much every clue that is notable enough to ask at high school will be present in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and/or some of the other sources Ethan mentioned.

In general, you should only read a philosophical text if you're actually interested in what the text has to say. If you're reading the text just to get points, you won't be interested enough to focus on what it's saying and you probably won't get very many buzzes from it.
Warning: This is going to get into meta-advice posting.

I think reading the text is helpful for retaining the information. It's a lot easier to remember an idea when the author repeats it for 100 pages than if you have one card on "what is the categorical imperative." Additionally, I believe reading an idea and seriously thinking about it makes it easier to recall long term than just having it on a card. I've never had to card "Schopenhauer's conception of the will" because I read about it more than enough.

Different question authors also might phrase a clue or an idea slightly differently than how you wrote it down on your card. Purely on a points/studying hour basis, it is best to memorize lists and card (especially true at low levels.) That concession aside, I don't think advice should be purely based on points/studying hour and I think it is dangerous to recommend against reading the primary texts. The chief reasons I believe this are 1) genuine interest in a subject such as Phil/SS would serve an interested young player well for actually getting good at the category and 2) I believe burnout is lower when students seriously engage in a subject they actually like than if they mindlessly card for it. Unfortunately, I speculate that a lot of high school Phil/SS players might have imposed into studying for the subjects because their team had a hole. Alternatively, their coach told them to study. This might be in place of their genuine interest in the subject. I think it is easier to foster genuine interest in a subject by encouraging serious interactions with the primary objects of interest rather than encouraging memorization. It's a shame because I believe they are some of the most rich and deep categories in quizbowl. The number one reason I stuck with quizbowl, despite my playing ability :lol: , was the exposure to new ideas in categories like philosophy.

SEP is a good start for most players but some sections are really devoid of content especially on some ancient or non-English authors. IEP has a ton of issues and I generally avoid it. Their editorial policy is a lot less strict than SEP afaik from Philosophy Twitter (honestly a good study resource to expose yourself to a ton of new thinkers.)

I'd rather advise that a student read the primary sources and seriously engage with the work at least on a podcast or in-depth video than advise they just mindlessly card. I also feel my study guide is more scalable and generalize than "memorize this list." At the competitive level, it is almost certainly true that people who read the text are going to beat the people who card. I do not think it is big ask to have aspiring high school Phil/SS players read the popular excerpts from The Republic or Ethics. These texts are pretty readable and there are a ton of resources for them. As far as I know, many high school students already read Plato excerpts anyway and question authors will try to pull memorable sections and clues from the most well-read books. Personally, I also find this form of studying to be more interested than memorizing the many pseudonyms of Kierkegaard but I imagine many aspiring players care more about their ppg than I do.

Additionally, the most notable philosophical texts have oft-anthologized excerpts and sections. I don't think it's worth it to read all of Essay Concerning Human Understanding, unless you want to be a Locke scholar, but there are some sections, such as on identity and sight, which are important. Books such as Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources by Ariew and Watson would serve well to this end. Additionally, serious podcasts such as Partially Examined Life have show notes where they highlight the important sections they discuss and allow the listener to follow along themselves with the discussion.

Perhaps this philosophic pragmatic vs. idealist argument shows why I am bad at quizbowl. This post is highly afield from the OP, and for that I apologize.
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