The
Philosophical
Society: Oxford

The Tony Chadwick Essay Prize

Dr Tony Chadwick, who died in January 1991, founded the Philosophical Society in 1972. He was Staff Tutor in Philosophy at what is now Oxford University Department for Continuing Education (OUDCE) which is based at Rewley House, Oxford. The Philosophical Society, in honour of Dr Chadwick, continues to encourage and support students of philosophy.

An Essay Prize of £150 is awarded annually for the best essay from any member of the Philosophical Society, any OUDCE student of any day, evening, weekend or Summer school classes, or any students of philosophy groups who have connections with the Philosophical Society.

In addition to the £150, the prize includes a free OUDCE philosophy weekend or day course of the winner's choice (excluding accommodation charges).

There is a £75 prize for the runner-up. This prize is known as the Boethius Prize. There is a £25 prize for the best essay written by someone whose age is less than 30. This is aimed at encouraging young philosophers. This prize is known as the Lyceum Prize.

After the winners are decided, all submitted essays are forwarded to the Editor of the Society's Annual Review. Winning essays are published automatically, the rest may also be published at the Editor's discretion, subject to the same criteria as any essays submitted directly to the Review.

If you are selected, you agree that your name will be included on The Philosophical Society website and The Philosophical Society member newsletter.

Essays can be sent as either hard copy or email, to arrive not later than 1st July. For details (including eligibility criteria) and for some advisory guidelines, please see the Chadwick Prize Rules.

Please add a separate cover sheet, with your name and contact information, plus details of how you qualify to enter this competition (e.g. membership of the Society, or which class you have attended), and a signed statement saying "This essay is entirely my own original work".

If submitting an essay to the Chadwick prize, please do not submit the same (or similar) to the Review, as this may compromise your anonymity. All submitted essays will be automatically forwarded to the Review Editor for consideration, unless you specifically request for this not to happen.

Below you can download PDF versions of the essays of all the winners and runners-up since the competition began in 1993.

Tony Chadwick Prize Winners and Runners up

2023 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Filippos Harlaftis: The Body is Absent and Maybe Rightly So: An Analysis Based on Heidegger’s Phenomenology
2023 Second prize(Boethius Prize): none: No prize awarded
2023 Youth prize(Lyceum Prize): Adam Davies: Can art be defined by a set of necessary and sufficient conditions?
2022 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Christopher Searle: Swinburne’s Substance Dualism
2022 Second prize(Boethius Prize): Tony Walton: History and Moral Realism: an essay exploring some aspects of metaethics
2022 Youth prize (Lyceum Prize): none: No prize awarded
2021 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Geoff Oliver: A does not cause C
2021 Second prize(Boethius Prize): Tony Walton: The Philosophy of Emotion – bodies, judgement, and being in the world
2021 Youth prize (Lyceum Prize): Andrea Bertazzoli: Comments on 'Reference and definite descriptions' by Keith S. Donnellan
2020 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Radoslaw Gora: Can we still morally justify testing candidate drugs on animals?
2020 Second prize(Boethius Prize): Nick Bion: Is work an essential element of the good life?
2020 Youth prize (Lyceum Prize): Andrea Bertazzoli: On Nussbaum's Emotions as Judgements of Value and Importance
2019 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Tony Walton: Cartesian Theory of the Mind
2019 Second prize(Boethius Prize): Safwan Zabalawi: The Problem of Self-Reference and the Law of Identity
2019 Youth prize (Lyceum Prize): none: No prize awarded
2018 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Tony Walton: The Strengths and Weaknesses of Frege's Critique of Locke
2018 Second prize(Boethius Prize): Greg Gauthier: Values, Virtues and Ethical Sportsmanship
2018 Youth prize (Lyceum Prize): none: No prize awarded
2017 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Geoff Oliver: We Are All Talking Nonsense
2017 Second prize(Boethius Prize): Nigel Humphreys: Kant on Time – Copernicus or Ptolemy?
2017 Youth prize (Lyceum Prize): Omar Mohamed: The 'Aristocratic Anarchism' of the Female Character in Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra"
2016 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Shree Ramaan: Do Deontologists' Rules Deny Particularism?
2016 Second prize(Boethius Prize): Miles Fender: Is Frege-Geach Problem a Worry?
2016 Youth prize (Lyceum Prize): Tasmin Baker: Descartes' Distinction of Mental and Physical
2015 First prize (Chadwick Prize): John Harries: Are Beliefs "In the Head?"
2015 Second prize(Boethius prize): James Edwards: A Taxonomy of Causal Reasoning
2015 Youth prize (Lyceum prize): Victoria Schaaf: Iconography as Photography
2014 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Bob Stone: Is Tomorrow's Sea-Battle Really Necessary?
2014 Second prize(Boethius prize): Alexander Thomas: The Problem of Eudaimonia and Virtue
2014 Youth prize (Lyceum prize): none: No prize awarded
2013 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Michael Donnan: The Laws of Logic, Intentionality and the Existence of God
2013 Second prize(Boethius prize): Robert Stone: The Only Way Is Compatibilism
2013 Youth prize (Lyceum prize): none: No prize awarded
2012 First prize (Chadwick Prize): David Hickey: A Problem for Egalitarians
2012 Second prize(Boethius prize): Robert Stone: In Defence of Determinism
2012 Youth prize (Lyceum prize): none: Prize would have been won by the David Hickey – the year's Chadwick prize winner.
2011 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Christian Michel: The Consistency of Tense
2011 Second prize(Boethius prize): Robert Stone: Intuitions and Self-Evidence in Moral Theories
2011 Youth prize (Lyceum prize): Shihwa Hwang-Meza: Lakatos' Immeasurable Contribution to Knowledge: the logical theory of the scientific method
2010 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Mike Arnautov: Befriending the Liar Paradox
2010 Second prize(Boethius prize): none: No prize awarded
2009 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Christian Michel: The Liar Paradox Outside-In
2009 Second prize(Boethius prize): Oliver Bridle: Is food not art because it is not expressive, not representational and incapable of interpretation?
2008 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Christian Michel: Why Truth Trackers Do Not Need to Reject Epistemic Closure
2008 Second prize(Boethius prize): Brenda Johnson: Does American Psycho Succeed Aesthetically and Morally for the Same Reasons?
2007 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Michael Donnan: Rawl's Notion of Overlapping Consensus
2007 Second prize(Boethius prize): Brenda Johnson: Can We Have Absolute Moral Obligations Towards the Environment?
2006 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Eileen Walker: Can We Save 'Qualia'? (Thomas Nagel and the 'Psychophysical Nexus')
2006 Second prize(Boethius prize): Brenda Johnson: Is there an Error Involved in the Way in Which we Typically Attribute Colour Properties to Objects?
2005 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Frank Brierley: The Duplicity of the Transcendental Object
2005 Second prize(Boethius prize): Phil Rees: The Post-Modern Critique of Science
2004 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Frank Brierley: Are Ethical Principles Wholly Subjective, Founded Simply on Emotion?
2004 Second prize(Boethius prize): Geoff Oliver: The Shape of Multicoloured Water
2003 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Peter Gibson: Responsible Brains
2003 Second prize(Boethius prize): Naomi Goulder: The Causality of the Will in Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
2002 First prize (Chadwick Prize): none: No prize awarded
2002 Second prize(Boethius prize): none: No prize awarded
2001 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Phil Rees: Nature Versus Nurture: Locke on Innate Ideas
2001 Second prize(Boethius prize): Geoff Oliver: As Free as Can Be
2000 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Eileen Walker: In Two Minds?
2000 Second prize(Boethius prize): Trevor Pitts: Determinism, Indeterminism, Evolution and Free Will
1999 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Phil Rees: The Mind Is Not the Brain: the Irreducibility of the Mental
1999 Second prize(Boethius prize): Trevor Pitts: Quantum Teleology and the Origin of the Universe
1998 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Trevor Pitts: Quantum Reality
1998 Second prize(Boethius prize): Verna Muitt: The Janus Nature of Time
1997 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Alan Bailey: Philosophy of Mind - a 50s View of the 90s
1997 Second prize(Boethius prize): Cedric Wisbey: Concerning Infinity
1996 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Colin Hannaford: A THESIS: That the Development of a Rational, Innovative Society, Internally Harmonious and Tolerant of Dissent, Depends on Understanding the Original Connection between Mathematics and Democracy
1996 Second prize(Boethius prize): Pamela Barlow: In Search of Thomas Hobbes, the Man
1995 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Peter Gibson: Stamping on Flowers
1995 Second prize(Boethius prize): none: No prize awarded
1994 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Pamela Barlow: Pioneer Russian Philosophers
1994 Second prize(Boethius prize): Catherine Walton: To Be a Philosopher-King...
1993 First prize (Chadwick Prize): Ronald Cretchley: Through the Looking Glass
1993 Second prize(Boethius prize): Peter Lloyd: Is the Mind Physical? Dissecting Conscious Brain Tissue

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