A. V. Ravishankar Sarma

A. V. Ravishankar Sarma is Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He specializes in formal and philosophical logic, formal epistemology and philosophy of science, with current research centred on belief revision, causality and scientific-theory change.

Education:

• PhD, Philosophy, IIT Bombay (2006) – Thesis on “On Causal and Constructive Modeling of Belief Revision”
• MA, Philosophy, University of Hyderabad (1998)
• MSc, Physics, Kakatiya University, Warangal (1996)

Research Interests:
His work integrates logical formalisms with philosophical questions about how scientific beliefs are revised when new evidence or causal information becomes available. Key themes include:

• Belief Revision & AGM Paradigms: developing constructive models that incorporate causal relevance.
• Causality: analysing causal counterfactuals and their semantics within logical frameworks.
• Philosophy of Science: investigating theory change, scientific realism (structuralist defence), and the role of abductive reasoning in discovery.

Scientific Awards & Fellowships:

• Post-doctoral Fellow, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (Feb–Sep 2006)
• GLoRiClass Fellow, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC), University of Amsterdam (Oct–Dec 2006)
• Post-doctoral Fellow, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR (Feb–May 2007)

Contact & Resources:
Office: Faculty Building FB-659, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kanpur
Phone: +91 512 259 6137 (O) / +91 512 259 8208 (R)
E-mail: avrs@iitk.ac.in
Web: Homepage & CV