Kranti Saran is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ashoka University, which he joined as a founding faculty member in 2013. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s from the University of Delhi, and completed his doctorate from Harvard University. Prior to coming to Ashoka, he was an Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Delhi, a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Philosophy at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Research Associate and Fellow in Philosophy at Harvard University. 

 Saran’s research interests span the areas of perception, attention, bodily awareness, introspection, mimicry, and how these topics are related to our moral relation to others. A common thread that runs through his research is a concern with understanding facets of our cognition: its faculties and modes (perception, attention), its embodiment (bodily awareness), its consequences for our relation to our selves and our immediate social milieu (introspection, mimicry), and finally, the manner in which these topics interact with culture and so either constrain or enable dimensions of our moral relation to others. His research on these topics is informed by his long-standing interest in the Buddhist tradition and in the Indian philosophical tradition more generally. For information on his published work, see http://krantisaran.net/papers.html

While Saran’s work has mostly been in the philosophy of mind, he also has a growing interest in political theory. As part of an academic project funded by the Global Humanities Initiative, he will visit Cambridge University in November 2022 to co-teach a graduate seminar on “Global Political Thought: India in Context” with Professor Shruti Kapila (Cambridge). The course will explore political ideas in classical Indian texts and explore their relevance for contemporary political theory.