Ashwin Jayanti


Assistant Professor
Ph.D (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)
Research Areas: Philosophy of technology; Ontology of technical artefacts; Moral significance of technical artefacts; History and philosophy of science; Science, technology, and society; Analytic philosophy; Phenomenology and existentialism
Email: ashwin.j@iiit.ac.in

I joined IIIT Hyderabad in 2019 as a faculty in philosophy for the newly created Dual Degree Program in Computer Science and Human Sciences (CHD). I completed my PhD from the Centre for Philosophy, School of Social Sciences, JNU (New Delhi). My area of research is philosophy of technology, wherein I investigate into the question of the nature and normativity of technical artefacts. My approach to this question is illuminated by my interest in bringing together the conceptual and methodological tools of both the analytic and continental schools of thought to bear on questions such as having to do with the nature of technical artefacts, how we go about defining and referring to technical artefacts, and the ascription of moral significance to these artefacts.

My research and teaching are guided by my interest in inhabiting, understanding, and critically thinking through the fissures between various disciplinary boundaries such as those between the humanities, sciences, and engineering, on the one hand, and between analytic and continental philosophy, on the other.

I have worked as an Assistant Professor (Ad-hoc) and Guest Lecturer at Gargi College and Kamala Nehru College of Delhi University. Prior to my PhD, I pursued my Masters in Philosophy from Madras Christian College, Chennai, before which I obtained my Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from Anna University, Chennai.

At IIIT-Hyderabad, I offer courses which introduce the students to various domains of philosophy by way of facilitating them to think through foundational questions in each of the domains: Thinking and Knowing in the Human Sciences (logic, critical thinking, mind-body problem, etc), Classical Text Readings (political theory, theories of state and political economy), Basics of Ethics (normative ethics and thinking through moral problems), Introduction to Philosophy of Technology (perspectives on technology, science-technology relationship, normativity of artefacts, philosophy of artificial intelligence, etc.).

Select Publications

  • [Article] “Investigating the Ontology of AI vis-à-vis Technical Artefacts.” Book chapter, forthcoming in AI, Consciousness And The New Humanism: Fundamental Reflections On Minds And Machines, Edited by Sangeetha Menon, Saurabh Todariya, Tilak Agerwala, SpringerNATURE – 2023.
  • [Article] “Instrumental Realisms and Their Ontological Commitments.” Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 23, no. 1 (2019): 68–82. DOI: 10.5840/techne201951396
  • [Article] “A Bird’s Eye View of Contemporary Philosophy of Technology.” February 2019. Published online at Barefoot Philosophers (an online platform for open dialogues in philosophy, an initiative of the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru). http://www.barefootphilosophers.org/category/scholarly/

Areas of Specialisation

  • Philosophy of technology
  • Normativity and ontology of technical artefacts
  • Postphenomenology

Areas of Interest

  • Phenomenology and existentialism
  • Philosophy of science
  • History and philosophy of science
  • Science, Technology, and Society
  • Analytic philosophy
  • Philosophy of language
  • Ethics and metaethics

Research Students

  • Harshdeep Singh
  • Murali Mukunda Bhat
  • Karthik Prasanna
  • Adala Vithesh Reddy
  • Arghya Roy

Potential Research Supervision

  • Ontology of technical artefacts
  • Normativity and moral status of technical artefacts
  • Philosophical issues in artificial intelligence: ethics of AI, bias and fairness in AI, alignment problem, creativity in AI, questioning intelligence in AI, AI and rule-following.
  • History and philosophy of science and technology