Ravi Thakrai | Paul, race, identity program – Nevada today

Summary

Ravi Thakral has basic research interests in the philosophy of language and ethics, with more interests in epistemology, logic and related areas. His teaching interests include work development that involves global sources (especially from Indian philosophy) in a way that speaks of current problems in all major areas of philosophy.

In the recent work, Ravi claims that generic generalizations (generalizations providing exceptions such as “parks have swings”) are essential to understanding the essence and structure of morality. He claims that accepting this means that the principles related to the moral sphere are much less essential than we usually guess. In this way, his work provides a new line of opposition to the privileged status of principles in moral philosophy and opens new paths to understand the role and nature of moral principles informed by the latter empirical developments in linguistics, psychology and cognitive science. In another ongoing work, Ravi explores the role of generation in the continuation of prejudice, as well as a number of questions in moral epistemology.

Ravi is a lecturer at the University of Nevada, Renault. Before he came to UNR, he taught at the University of Sussex (and served as a teacher of philosophy and PPE) and at the University of St. Andrews (with additional belonging to the Center for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs). He is also a research associate at the Hofberger Professional Ethics Center at the University of Baltimore.

Research Interests:

• Semantics and pragmatics of generic agents
• The role of generic means in moral and social knowledge
• The language of prejudice
• Moral epistemology

Taught courses:

• Phil 101: Introduction to Philosophy
• Phil 114: Intro symbolic logic
• Phil 245: Modern moral problems
• Phil 316: A study of the 20th century philosophy
• Phil 425/625: Philosophy of Language
• Phil 450/650: Ethical theory

Publications:

• Moral principles such as generics (Magazine of the American Philosophical Association2024)
• Generic means and poor need (Inquiry2018)

Rewards:

• Decan Award for Exclusive Teaching (Category that has not tossed), College of Liberal Arts, University of Nevada, Renault (2024)
• Student Teaching Award (PhD in Teaching), University of St. Andrews (2019)