Editorial · About
A platform for writing that treats thinking as something we do together.
SyātCast is the work of two incoming graduate students who wanted a different kind of philosophical writing community — one rooted in patience, criticism, and care.
SyātCast began with a small frustration. Much of what is written in public today — including, painfully, much of what is written about philosophy — is written to argue, to react quickly, or to reinforce a view already held. We wanted to make a space for a slower kind of writing: one that listens before it answers, that takes its objections seriously, and that is more interested in understanding than in winning.
The name comes from syāt, the Jain logicians' qualifier. Every philosophical claim, they held, is more honestly stated when one prefixes it with perhaps, or in some respect, or it may be. The qualification is not weakness; it is the recognition that things may be otherwise, and that this recognition is the beginning, not the end, of careful thought.
We are, accordingly, not in a hurry. The platform publishes occasional essays. It runs an annual summer intensive. It curates resources for students who are working through the discipline on their own. None of this is meant to scale. All of it is meant to be useful.
Saathvik & Lenin · Civil Lines, Delhi The founders, with characteristic gestures
The Founders№ 02
Two graduate students who wanted to do this work together.
Co-Founder
Saathvik Devarakonda
Incoming graduate student · University of Toronto
Saathvik works in epistemology, philosophy of language, the ethics of belief, and Indian philosophy — with a particular interest in how Jain logical tools, especially the framework of syāt and syādvāda, can clarify contemporary debates about indeterminacy and cognitive bias. His paper "Syād-Narrative as a Philosophical Practice Method to Minimize Cognitive Biases" appeared in the International Journal of Applied Philosophy HASER, and his more recent work reconstructs the Mahābhārata's concept of āpaddharma as a framework for emergency ethics, published in the proceedings of the Oxford Dharma Conference 2025.
He has presented work at the Universities of Oxford, Geneva, Bern, and Nottingham, and was the only Indian student selected for the Hamilton College Summer Programme in Philosophy. Before founding SyātCast, he served as the founding Secretary-General of the only student-run Office of International Programs in the University of Delhi.
Co-Founder
Lenin Joshua
Incoming graduate student · Yale University
Lenin works at the intersection of epistemology, philosophy of language, political theory, and the ethics of belief, with an interest in scepticism, relativism, and the limits of certainty. His current research with the SPARC-funded Samvāda Project at IIT Tirupati examines debates within and amongst modern Indian thinkers — Sri Narayana Guru, Mohammad Iqbal, K.C. Bhattacharya — through the concept of vāda, the disciplined practice of disagreement.
He has worked across coursework in relativism and scepticism with the University of California, Irvine, and on textual study of Shaiva philosophy with Amrita Vishwavidyapeetham. He served as General Secretary of the Department of Philosophy at Dyal Singh College, University of Delhi.
Editorial Convictions№ 03
A small set of things we believe.
- Thinking is something we do together. Even when we write alone, the writing only gets better in contact with another careful mind. SyātCast exists to make that contact possible for people who do not yet have it.
- Philosophy is a craft. Like any craft, it is learned by repetition, by careful observation of more accomplished practitioners, and by being told, often, what is wrong with what one has just done. We do not believe in shortcuts.
- Polish is not the goal. Honest writing, even uneven writing, is more valuable than smooth writing that does not know what it is saying. We trust the rough sample over the rehearsed one.
- The discipline is for everyone who takes it seriously. Access to careful philosophical training should not depend on which campus one is enrolled at or who one's parents knew. Our work tries, in modest ways, to widen the door.
Now Open
Applications for Summer 2026 are open.
Six fellows. Eight weeks. No programme fee. Applications close 8 June 2026.
The Summer Intensive →