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Varun RavikumarPhD Student and Rotman Institute Member
I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Western University. My research explores how people’s thoughts and actions are influenced by the social, cultural, and political environments they inhabit. My work lies at the intersection of philosophy, radical embodied cognitive science, and social theory. I hold an MA in Philosophy from Northern Illinois University and an MEng in Engineering Mechanics from Pennsylvania State University. I completed my bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Shiv Nadar University, and I am originally from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. My research has appeared in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Australasian Philosophical Review. It has also received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Rotman Institute of Philosophy, and MITACS. For more details about my work, please see the Research section. For inquiries and/or collaboration, please contact me at vraviku [at] uwo [dot] ca. My research examines the embedded, participatory relationship between humans and their environments, focusing on how human cognition and agency are structured by — and, in turn, shape — social, cultural, and political environments. Drawing on ecological psychology, phenomenology, pragmatism, and Bourdieusian critical social theory, I analyze how institutions, practices, norms, and affordances influence perception and action. I explore these dynamics in relation to contemporary social issues such as sustainability, migration, democracy, and cultural belonging. More broadly, my work aims to integrate insights from the cognitive and social sciences — particularly radical embodied cognitive science and critical social science—to develop an interdisciplinary, non-individualistic account of human agency and selfhood that is both philosophically and socially grounded. Recent publications
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