My name is Nikhil Mahant. I am an academic philosopher specializing in the philosophy of language.

Like other philosophers of language, I am interested in questions such as how we manage to do (miraculous!) things by producing sounds or scribbling symbols—for example, describing the world, expressing thoughts, or performing actions (e.g., making promises). Apart from language, I am interested in the philosophy of mind (e.g., what are altered states of consciousness?) and the philosophy of religion (e.g., the nature of religious language). A big influence on me is the medieval saint-poet Mirabai, , who is thought to have spent some—and, according to some stories, quite a lot of—time in the city where I grew up.

Here is a recent picture of my awesome headphones—with me attached—taken in the English Park, outside the Department of Philosophy in Uppsala, Sweden.

Starting in September 2026, I will join the University of Western Australia’s campus in Chennai, India. From August 2024 to July 2026, I was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Uppsala University. Earlier, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, where I wrote my PhD dissertation. My PhD dissertation was on the philosophy of proper names. (“Proper names” is philosophy speak for names of particular individuals, such as “Varanasi” or “William James”, as opposed to terms like “blue”, “cat”, or “wisdom”.) I remain deeply interested in all things names. As every philosopher of names knows, names beginning with letters that come later in the English alphabet are, of course, superior.

More information about my research and academic background can be found through the links above. I am still working on this website 🙂