Ever since 8th grade, Raymond Xu (12) has analyzed the world through the lens of philosophy.

“Philosophy in general has broadened my views for how I can interpret the world and the things going on around me,” he said. “It allows me to be able to take a step back and reflect a little.”

Raymond first explored philosophy by debating philosophical frameworks surrounding a set topic.  

“The way debate breaks down philosophy and compartmentalizes it into a form that can fit speech time constraints allows a lot of exposure really quickly to a lot of interesting thinkers,” he said. “Because it’s so contrived to fit the debate format where one side has to be right, a lot of times, the philosophers will be the first to admit that they don’t know everything and that they can’t claim to be right about everything.”

Helping with the organization of Harker’s philosophy club’s annual conference, attending the Stanford Humanity Institute course on Marx, Nietzsche and Freud and writing a paper about the Nietzschean power rationality applied to classical neo-liberal economics helped Raymond futher understand philosophy.

First studying 19th century German philosophers like Nietzsche or Marx and Classical thinkers like Aristotle and Plato, Raymond received a good foundation to explore more postmodern critical thinkers like Plato or Lacan. However, inspired by his literary review paper using psychoanalytic theory in his junior year, he found Freudian theory both controversial and interesting.

“My favorite philosophical theory is the psychoanalytical inspired by Freud,” he said. “A lot of people’s reaction to Freud’s theory is really mixed, and that’s kind of why it is really interesting to me. Freud attempts to explain all of human behavior in a couple of fixed modes, which can get acceptance and criticism at the same time. From a 21st-century perspective, you can look back and see how a lot of the culture norms that have shaped his theory have changed over time.”

Many of Raymond’s philosophical thoughts take place in the pool. Starting swimming when he was four and remaining a competitive swimmer until high school, Raymond also played water polo from freshmen to junior year and has coached at his local pool since sophomore year.

“Swimming is a place I like to be in if I want some space to think,” he said. “I like being alone in the pool that maybe a little bit isolated at times give you swim laps in the pool that repetition of going back and forth really allows you to cool your mind, get a lot of unnecessary thoughts out and really think about what you want to do, what sort of things you have to accomplish soon, that is pretty consistent with philosophy. You have to make sure you have priority set.”