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211Dretske on the Causation of BehaviorBehavior and Philosophy 36 71-86. 2008.In two recent articles and an earlier book Fred Dretske appeals to a distinction between triggering and structuring causes with the aim of establishing that psychological explanations of behavior differ from non-psychological ones. He concludes that intentional human behavior is triggered by electro-chemical events but structured by representational facts. In this paper I argue that while this underrated causalist position is considerably more persuasive than the standard causalist alternative, …Read more
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161The Explanation of Action in HistoryEssays in Philosophy 7 (2): 12. 2006.This paper focuses on two conflations which frequently appear within the philosophy of history and other fields concerned with action explanation. The first of these, which I call the Conflating View of Reasons, states that the reasons for which we perform actions are reasons why (those events which are) our actions occur. The second, more general conflation, which I call the Conflating View of Action Explanation, states that whatever explains why an agent performed a certain action explains why…Read more
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66Animal EthicsIn Richard Corrigan (ed.), Ethics: A University Guide, Progressive Frontiers Pubs.. pp. 21. 2010.
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131NassimTaleb in conversation with Constantine SandisPhilosophy Now (Sep/Oct): 24. 2008.COnstantien Sandis speaks to Nassim Taleb about inductive knowledge,black swans, Hume, Popper, and Wittgenstein.
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175Philosophy for younger people: A polemicPhilosophical Pathways. 2004.Recent years have seen a high increase in the teaching of Philosophy in schools. Programs such as Pathways Schools in Australia International Society for Philosophers, since 2003), 'Philosophy in Schools' in the UK (Royal Institute of Philosophy, since 1999), and 'Philosophy for Children' in the USA, Australia, and the UK (International Council for Philosophical Inquiry since 1985 & Society for Advancing Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education since 1993) are spreading around the world…Read more
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86Gilbert Ryle , Collected Papers Volume I: Critical Essays . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 31 (6): 455-457. 2011.
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59The Meaning of Hume's Necessary ConnexionsIn Keith Allen & Tom Stoneham (eds.), Causation and Modern Philosophy, . forthcoming.
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111Contextualist vs. Analytic History of PhilosophyThink 8 (22): 1-5. 2009.This paper uses analogies between Socratic and Wittgenseinian dialogues to argue that analytic philosophy of history should not be abandoned. In their responses to my paper ‘In Defence of Four Socratic Doctrines’ James Warren and John Shand raised a number of important methodological objections, relating to the study of the history of philosophy. I here respond by questioning the supremacy of contextualist history of philosophy over the so-called ‘analytic’ approach. I conclude that the history…Read more
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83"Review of" Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students" (review)Essays in Philosophy 8 (2): 10. 2007.
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1Action, reason, and the passionsIn Alan Bailey & Dan O'Brien (eds.), The Continuum Companion to Hume, Continuum. pp. 199--213. 2012.
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118One Fell SwoopJournal of the Philosophy of History 9 (3): 372-392. 2015._ Source: _Volume 9, Issue 3, pp 372 - 392 In this essay I revisit some anti-causalist arguments relating to reason-giving explanations of action put forth by numerous philosophers writing in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s in what Donald Davidson dismissively described as a ‘neo-Wittgensteinian current of small red books’. While chiefly remembered for subscribing to what has come to be called the ‘logical connection’ argument, the positions defended across these volumes are in fact as diverse as t…Read more
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146Jessica brown, anti-individualism and knowledge (review)Minds and Machines 18 (1): 145-146. 2008.
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2833Introduction : Hegel and contemporary philosophy of actionIn Arto Laitinen & Constantine Sandis (eds.), Hegel on action, Palgrave-macmillan. 2010.The aim of this book is to provide an in-depth account of Hegel’s writings on human action as they relate to contemporary concerns in the hope that it will encourage fruitful dialogue between Hegel scholars and those working in the philosophy of action. During the past two decades, preliminary steps towards such a dialogue were taken, but many paths remain uncharted. The book thus serves as both a summative document of past interaction and a promissory note of things to come. We begin this intro…Read more
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17Human Nature (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2012.An understanding of human nature has been central to the work of some of the greatest philosophical thinkers including Plato, Descartes, Hume, Hobbes, Rousseau, Freud and Marx. Questions such as 'what is human nature?', 'is there such a thing as an exclusively human nature?', 'through what methods might we best discover more about our nature?', and 'to what extent are our actions and beliefs constrained by it?' are of central importance not only to philosophy, but to our general understanding of…Read more
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111The things we do and why we do themPalgrave-Macmillan. 2012.The Things We Do and Why We Do Them argues against the common assumption that there is a kind of thing called "action" which all reason-giving explanation of action are geared towards. Sandis explains why all theories concerned with the form which any such explanation must take fail from the outset, and shows how various debates on the nature of so-called motivating reasons only arise because the participants all share a number of mistaken views which follow from the basic assumption under attac…Read more
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Gods and mental states : the causation of action in ancient tragedy and modern philosophy of mindIn New Essays on the Explanation of Action, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 358--385. 2009.This paper argues that contemporary philosophy of mind and action could learn much from the structure of action explanation manifested in ancient Greek tragedy, which is less deterministic than typically supposed and which does not conflate the motivation of action with its causal production.
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139Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action – By Maria AlvarezRatio 24 (2): 222-226. 2011.
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26An Honest Display of Fakery: Replicas and the Role of MuseumsRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 79 241-259. 2016.This essay brings together questions from aesthetic theory and museum management. In particular, I relate a contextualist account of the value of copies to a pluralistic understanding of the purpose of museums. I begin by offering a new defence of the no longer fashionable view that the aesthetic (as opposed to the ethical, personal, monetary, historical, or other) value of artworks may be detached from questions regarding their provenance. My argument is partly based on a distinction between th…Read more
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63Reasons and Causes: Causalism and Non-causalism in the Philosophy of Action (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2013.
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767Hume and the Debate on 'Motivating Reasons'In Charles Pigden (ed.), Hume on Motivation and Virtue, Palgrave-macmillan. 2009.This paper argues for a novel interpretation of Hume's account of motivation, according to which beliefs can (alone) motivate action though not by standing as reasons which normatively favour it. It si then suggested that a number of contemporary debates about concerning the nature of reasons for action could benefit from such an approach.
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219The objects of action explanationRatio 25 (3): 326-344. 2012.This paper distinguishes between various different conceptions of behaviour and action before exploring an accompanying variety of distinct things that ‘action explanation’ may plausibly amount to viz. different objectives of action explanation. I argue that a large majority of philosophers are guilty of conflating many of these, consequently offering inadequate accounts of the relation between actions and our reasons for performing them. The paper ends with the suggestion that we would do well …Read more
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157Contextualist Vs. Analytic History of Philosophy: A Study in SocratesThink 8 (22): 101-105. 2009.I here respond to James Warren and John Shand's replies to my paper ‘In Defence of Four Socratic Doctrines’ (all published in THINK 17) by questioning the supremacy of contextualist history of philosophy over the so-called ‘analytic’ approach.