Thesis Title:
Utopian Philology: Kang Youwei’s Alternative Vision of Modernity and the Limits of Teleology
Supervisors:
Henrietta Harrison and Dirk Meyer
Biography:
Born in Canada, I grew up in Scotland, where I took my undergraduate degree in philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Afterwards, I supported myself teaching while pursuing my own research and studying Chinese language, literature and history independently. In 2022 I completed a master’s in philosophy at Shanghai Jiaotong University, specializing in pre-Qin philosophy and Han-era “classical studies” (jingxue經學). This intensive linguistic and cultural immersion was initially very challenging, but also immensely stimulating and intellectually invigorating to a degree I had not anticipated, allowing me to supplement my previous training in European philosophy with direct engagement with indigenous Chinese philological traditions.
My research at Oxford is supported by an Arts and Humanities Research Council OOC-DTP Studentship, a Christ Church Scholarship and the Clarendon Fund.
Educational Background:
2019-2022: Masters in Philosophy, Shanghai Jiaotong University
2004-2008: MA (Hons) in Philosophy and English Literature, University of Glasgow
Research Interests:
My doctoral research focusses on a central aspect of Gongyang historical ontology, the “Three Ages”, using it as the conceptual framework for a new understanding of Kang Youwei’s philological and utopian ideas in the context of their time.
By interrogating the internal logic of Kang’s philosophical inconsistencies, I argue that he was necessarily inconsistent, given his intellectual heritage and the historical pressures he faced. At the same time, by illuminating the complex, contingent processes that led him to formulate his ideas in the way he did, I hope to rescue them from linear, teleological narratives that read them as precursors to 20th century movements and ideas.
My main research interests are in classical Chinese philosophy, philology and intellectual history. I am particularly interested in exploring the ways in which ancient Chinese traditions have developed through interaction with non-Chinese and modern influences. Beyond my work on Confucianism, I am fascinated by Chinese Buddhist and Daoist ideas, with special emphasis on the Zhuangzi, a pre-Qin Daoist text which I believe can be used to develop new ways of thinking about many modern philosophical problems.
Recent Publications
‘Gongzi You ru Chen: Gongyangzhuan yu ‘qinqin’ ‘zunzun’ rujia sixiang 公子友如陳：<公羊傳>与“親親”“尊尊”儒家思想’ [“Prince You Went to the State of Chen”: The Gongyangzhuan and Confucian Ideas of “Love for One’s Kin” and “Respect for One’s Elders and Superiors”], Journal of Hengshui University (衡水大學學報), 2022, 24(3): 44-54.
Republished in Dong Zhongshu yanjiu wenku: di ershiliu ji董仲舒研究文庫: 第二十六輯 [Library of Dong Zhongshu Research: Part Sixteen], edited by Wei Yanhongwei魏彥紅, Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2024, 224-246.
Forthcoming July 2025
‘That Which Does Not Change”: Ontological Ambiguity, The Mandate of Heaven and the Historical Cycles of the “Sandaigaizhi zhiwen 三代改制質文’, Philosophy East and West, 2025, 75(3).
Links: https://www.oocdtp.ac.uk/people/paul-napier
