Project Description

Home / Members / Graduate Students / Varun Ravikumar

RESEARCH AREAS:

  • Philosophy of Cognitive and Social Science

  • History and Philosophy of Science

  • Philosophy of Mind

CONTACT:

  • Rotman Institute of Philosophy
    Western University
    Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, 7148
    London, Ontario, Canada
    N6A 3K7

  • vraviku@uwo.ca

ADDITIONAL PROFILES:

VARUN RAVIKUMAR

Doctoral Student; 
Department of Philosophy, Western University

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Philosophy Department at Western University (University of Western Ontario) and a graduate trainee at the Rotman Institute of Philosophy. Prior to commencing my doctoral studies, I earned my M.A. in Philosophy from Northern Illinois University, my M.Eng. in Engineering Mechanics from The Pennsylvania State University, and my B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Shiv Nadar University.

My transition from engineering to philosophy was driven by a change in research focus—from examining material behavior to exploring how human minds adapt to new contexts. I am particularly interested in the theories, concepts, explanations, and methods used within and across the cognitive and social sciences to investigate the foundations of human cognition, sociality, and behavior

In recent decades, many new research fields have emerged at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Although researchers in these fields aim to leverage insights from both branches of science to investigate the social and cognitive foundations of human behavior, they face significant ontological, epistemological, theoretical, conceptual, and methodological challenges.

My research program aims to tackle these issues by exploring several key questions: How do researchers conceptualize and model the relationships between mind, brain, body, and society? How do they reconcile similarities and differences in theories, concepts, and explanations across different research programs? In what ways does their interdisciplinary work enhance our scientific understanding of human cognition and behavior? What implications does their work have for traditional philosophical questions about the mind, self, agency, and society?

My current project focuses on Gibsonian ecological psychology and explores how researchers utilize resources from the social sciences to investigate the social foundations of ‘affordances.’ I also study Bourdieusian cognitive sociology and explore how researchers utilize resources from the cognitive sciences to study the cognitive foundations of ‘habitus.’

My research interests span the philosophy of cognitive and social sciences, the history and philosophy of science (including the history of psychology, social theory, scientific explanations, theory change), and the philosophy of mind (including social perception, habits, agency, selfhood, pragmatism, phenomenology). I am also interested in the philosophy of environment and technology (particularly in sustainability, human-robot interactions, and engineering design)

Ravikumar, V. (forthcoming). Explaining social subjectivity: A Bourdieusian response to Zahavi. Australasian Philosophical Review. Doi:10.1080/24740500.2024.2485537

Richmond, A., Jonathan, B. G., Kayssi, L. F., Küçük, K., Ravikumar, V., Şahin, M. Y., and Anderson, M. L. (2024). Imposing vs finding unity. Cognitive Neuroscience, 15(3–4), 122–123. Doi: 10.1080/17588928.2024.2405187

Ravikumar, V., Bowen, J., and Anderson, M. L. (2023). A more ecological perspective on human-robot interactions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 46, e42. Doi: 10.1017/S0140525X22001613

Ravikumar, V., Yi, N., Vepachedu, V., and Cheng, H. (2017). Transfer Printing for Cyber-Manufacturing Systems. In: Jeschke, S., Brecher, C., Song, H., Rawat, D. (eds) Industrial Internet of Things. Springer Series in Wireless Technology. Springer, Cham. Doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-42559-7_28