Philosophy – Student News

March 2022

 

Mukund Maithani, who is currently working on a Capstone thesis on Iris Murdoch and Buddhaghosa on Attention, got a paper accepted in Stance! The title of Mukund’s paper: “How a Buddha Acts: Laying Bricks for a Buddhist Theory of Action.” Congratulations, Mukund!

 

August 2020

Exciting news!

After a lot of busy planning and scheming, on Aug 1, Ashoka’s Philosophy Society proudly announced the launch of Ashoka University’s student-run, peer-reviewed undergraduate Philosophy journal: Citta.

This is the logo (watch out for it) and here is the announcement.

The Citta co-founders and members of the editorial committee (in alphabetical order) are:

• Aadya Singh, ASP ’21. Philosophy Major & Psychology Advanced Major.
• Deepti Jayakrishnan, UG ’21. Philosophy Major.
• Harsha Potapragada, UG ’21. Economics & Philosophy Major.
• Ila Deep, ASP ’21. Advanced Philosophy Major.
• Mukund Maithani, UG ’21. Philosophy Major.
• Nayancee, UG ’21. Philosophy Major.
• Udoyon Banerjee, UG ’21. Politics, Philosophy, & Economics Major.

“Setting up Citta has been a crazy flurry of creativity, enthusiasm and extended (late night) phone calls. We began with an optimistic timeline – a slight hope of getting all the work done on time. After all the ‘deep’ discussions about the ‘vibe’ of the logo and the nitty-gritties of the project, we finally see our vision materialising! We’ve got a long road ahead of us and we couldn’t be more excited!”

Citta,editorial board

Professor Raja serves as Faculty mentor, advises the board where needed, and puts things up on the website, but all substantial work is handled by students only. The editorial board can be contacted by sending an email to citta@ashoka.edu.in.

The first volume of Citta, scheduled to appear in March 2021, will feature the winner of the Existentialist Short Essay Competition (see here for the call) and a number of essays of 2500-3500 words length. A call for abstracts (due Aug 22) or drafts (due Sep 12) has gone out and can be seen here.

July 2020

Existentialist Essay Competition!

The  Philosophy Society has issued a call for contributions to to an Existentialist Essay Competition. See below for the flyer and here for more details.

June 2020

Accepted!

We are proud to announce that a number of our graduates were accepted and did accept offers for post-graduate studies. Here are just a few of them:

• Ritam Chakraborty, after completing a Major in Philosophy, received multiple offers and will join SFU in Canada for a funded 2-year M.A. in Philosophy either this year or next.
• Mahati Garimella, after completing a Major in Psychology and a Second Major Equivalent in Philosophy was offered to start a BPhil in Philosophy at the University of Oxford
• Jyoti Shankar Nayak, who did an Advanced Major in Political Science, but did his Capstone in collaboration with the Philosophy Department, will move on to pursue a MPhil at the University of Oxford, with the help of a prestigious Felix scholarship
• anonymous, after completing a Major in Philosophy, is also going to move on and do a BPhil in Philosophy at the University of Oxford, with the help of a prestigious Felix scholarship

May 2020

Graduation

On May 30th, 31 UG and ASP students graduated with some credential in Philosophy: a Concentration, a Minor, a Major, a Second Major Equivalent, or an Advanced Major.

…our students celebrated while engaging in proper social distancing:

Vanshaj Garg, freshly prepared Philosophy Major, celebrating.

Many congratulations to all – we wish you the best and hope to see all of you when convocation happens!

 

Defenses, Defenses, Defenses!

In May, no less than 8 students defended their Capstone Thesis or their MLS Thesis in Philosophy via Zoom or Meet and 4 more successfully submitted and passed their theses! Congratulations to all!

Here are the names, defense dates, thesis title, and advisor(s) – sorted by defense date, Philosophy faculty members in blue, other Ashoka faculty in orange, external advisors in pink:

• Jahnavi Jethmalani, May 5th, “Nature, Technology and the Monkey in the Middle”, Clancy Martin
• Jyoti Shankar Nayak, May 5th, “A Liberal Defence of Bounded States”, Danny Weltman & Pratap Bhanu Mehta
• Gaurav Kamath, May 6th, “Expressive Polysemy and How to Process It”, Raja Rosenhagen & Kate Stanton (University of Pittsburgh)
• Devanshi Iyer, May 11th, ” Nagarjuna: the original ‘Devil’s advocate’?”, Alex Watson
• Rudra Cariappa, May 11th, ” Undoing the Nihilist Interpretation of Nāgārjuna: Exploring hermeneutical frameworks in contemporary Buddhology”, Alex Watson
• Divyaj Sharma, May 13th, ” The Problem of Unrealistic Assumptions in Economic Theorizing”, Raja Rosenhagen
• Pranav A S, May 15th, “I Met VIKI on the 29th of August: Why Fully Autonomous Weapon Systems are Defensible and Should Be Developed”, Danny Weltman
• Shivanshu Mishra, May 15th, “Russellian Monism and the Exclusion of Intentionality”, Kranti Saran & Raja Rosenhagen

Also successfully submitted:

• Utkarsh Adhrit, “A Macintyrian Response to Moral Fictionalism”, Danny Weltman
• Srinidhi Balaji, “The Nicomachean Ethics: External goods and eudaimonia”, Aditi Chaturvedi
• Mahati Garimella, ” Panqualityism as a Solution to the Combination Problem”, Kranti Saran & Raja Rosenhagen
• Kanchan Yadav, “Are We All Condemned To Be Hopeful?”, Clancy Martin