Jan Preiss (Czech Republic)

As a Central European, I have always been fascinated by the way in which the region’s identity rests on a historical fusion of its rich linguistic and cultural heritage into one broadly coherent, but self-consciously diverse, tradition. This pre-theoretical fascination with tradition and its internal mechanics is what first brought me to Oxford to read Classics as an undergraduate; it also motivates one of my primary research interests in philosophy: the question of how, if at all, the insights of different intellectual traditions can be meaningfully combined to create a more robust account of reality. To this end, I intend to use the BPhil to think about metaphysics through the lenses of various Western and non-Western (particularly Buddhist) thinkers, with a particular focus on the question of whether process philosophy could be a better account of reality than one assuming the primacy of substance.

My interests outside of philosophy include Chinese culture and history, opera, and classical language pedagogy (to this end, I co-founded Oxford Latinitas, an organisation promoting the teaching of Latin and ancient Greek using the active method). I am also a keen runner and cross-country skier.