An essay by this thinker imagines the “obstinate pride” needed to say that there are “nine hundred million little ants” on earth but “only my anthill is beloved of God.” Mikhail Bakunin’s God and the State uses the word “abolish” in an inversion of a quote by this thinker. This thinker’s critiques of dogmatic authority include the claim that “superstition sets the world in flame,” the plea to “crush the infamous,” and his Treatise on Tolerance. This thinker wrote that “if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” This author of Letters on the English and the Philosophical Dictionary created a character who rationalizes his syphilis and the Lisbon earthquake. For 10 points, what author parodied Leibniz’s Theodicy via the character Pangloss in his novel Candide? ■END■
| Lower Mid-Atlantic | 2025-02-01 | Y | 6 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 97.83 |
| Midwest | 2025-02-01 | Y | 6 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 91.00 |
| Northeast | 2025-02-01 | Y | 4 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 88.25 |
| Overflow | 2025-02-01 | Y | 4 | 100% | 0% | 25% | 107.50 |
| Pacific Northwest | 2025-02-01 | Y | 2 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 106.50 |
| UK | 2025-02-01 | Y | 10 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 99.20 |
| Upper Mid-Atlantic | 2025-02-01 | Y | 8 | 100% | 0% | 25% | 109.38 |
| Player | Team | Opponent | Buzz Position | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ivan Stanisavljevic | Duke | Liberty C | 29 | 10 |
| Andrew Messersmith | Brandeis B | Brown A | 29 | 10 |
| Audrey Cho | Haverford A | Johns Hopkins A | 64 | -5 |
| Omer Keskin | Oxford A | Imperial A | 70 | 10 |
| Aden Sun | Chicago B | WashU B | 72 | 10 |
| Frederick Rivas-Giorgi | Yale A | Cornell B | 72 | 10 |
| Jakob Myers | Indiana A | Chicago A | 73 | 10 |
| Ryan Fang | Stanford B | Purdue | 75 | -5 |
| Charles Hang | WashU A | Missouri | 75 | 10 |
| Seraphina Charlotte Foo | Cambridge A | LSE | 75 | 10 |
| Sam McNamee | Notre Dame A | Northwestern B | 77 | 10 |
| Joseph Chambers | Virginia A | UNC B | 84 | 10 |
| Elliot Cosnett | Oxford B | Southampton A | 84 | 10 |
| Ian McDowell | Cambridge C | Sheffield | 87 | 10 |
| Akshar Goyal | Illinois A | Illinois B | 91 | 10 |
| Jack Rado | Columbia B | Maryland B | 91 | 10 |
| Michael Kearney | Harvard A | MIT A | 98 | 10 |
| Louis Cameron | Cambridge E | Warwick B | 99 | 10 |
| Anne Fjeld | Alberta | UW A | 100 | 10 |
| Ryan Rosenberg | NYU A | Penn B | 105 | 10 |
| Shiv Seshan | Cambridge B | Manchester | 108 | 10 |
| Noah Chin | Virginia Tech A | Wake Forest | 112 | 10 |
| Roan Dowling | Iowa | Northwestern A | 113 | 10 |
| John Chen | UBC | UW B | 113 | 10 |
| Eren Michelet | BU | UMass Boston | 113 | 10 |
| Max Neal | Harvard B | Tufts A | 113 | 10 |
| Sam Macchi | Vassar A | NYU B | 113 | 10 |
| Aum Mundhe | Rutgers A | Columbia C | 113 | 10 |
| Isaac Mammel | Maryland A | Penn A | 113 | -5 |
| Chris Yoo | William & Mary | South Carolina | 114 | 10 |
| Antoni Kluzowski | Warwick A | Cambridge D | 114 | 10 |
| Max Hodes | Chicago D | Illinois C | 115 | 10 |
| Max Kolda | Notre Dame B | Georgetown B | 116 | 10 |
| Michael Wu | Southampton B | Bristol | 116 | 10 |
| Jacob Hardin-Bernhardt | NYU C | Imperial B | 118 | 10 |
| Aidan Jones | Liberty A | UNC C | 119 | 10 |
| Trenton Burgess | Indiana B | Missoui S&T | 120 | 10 |
| Hamish Campbell | Durham | Oxford C | 121 | 10 |
| Sinecio Morales | Johns Hopkins A | Haverford A | 121 | 10 |
| Davis Johnson | Purdue | Stanford B | 124 | 10 |
| Nick Smemoe | UNC D | Liberty B | 129 | 10 |
| Sasha Wertime | Haverford B | George Washington B | 130 | 10 |
| Hannah Nieuwveld | Penn A | Maryland A | 130 | 10 |