•  109
    This essay introduces a tension between the public Wittgenstein’s optimism about knowledge of other minds and the private Wittgenstein’s pessimism about understanding others. There are three related reasons which render the tension unproblematic. First, the barriers he sought to destroy were metaphysical ones, whereas those he struggled to overcome were psychological. Second, Wittgenstein’s official view is chiefly about knowledge while the unofficial one is about understanding. Last, Wittgenste…Read more
  • Hegel on Action (edited book)
    with Arto Laitinenen
    Palgrave-Macmillan. 2010.
  •  164
    The silver rule of acting under uncertainty
    The Philosophers' Magazine 66 84-88. 2014.
  •  163
    Hitchcock's Conscious Use of Freud's Unconscious
    Europe's Journal of Psychology 3 56-81. 2009.
    This paper argues that Hitchcock's so-called 'Freudian' films (esp. Spellbound, Psycho, and Marnie) pay tribute to the cultural magnetism of Freud's ideas whist being critical of the tehories themselves.
  •  156
    The Explanation of Action in History
    Essays 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
  •  203
    Dretske on the Causation of Behavior
    Behavior 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
  • Julian Baggini, Philosophy: Key Themes (review)
    Philosophy in Review 23 373-375. 2003.
  •  66
    Animal Ethics
    In Richard Corrigan (ed.), Ethics: A University Guide, Progressive Frontiers Pubs.. pp. 21. 2010.
  •  128
    NassimTaleb in conversation with Constantine Sandis
    Philosophy Now (Sep/Oct): 24. 2008.
    COnstantien Sandis speaks to Nassim Taleb about inductive knowledge,black swans, Hume, Popper, and Wittgenstein.
  •  175
    Philosophy for younger people: A polemic
    Philosophical 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
  •  83
    "Review of" Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students" (review)
    Essays in Philosophy 8 (2): 10. 2007.
  •  107
    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
  •  110
    One Fell Swoop
    Journal 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
  •  1
    Action, reason, and the passions
    In Alan Bailey & Dan O'Brien (eds.), The Continuum Companion to Hume, Continuum. pp. 199--213. 2012.
  •  2823
    Introduction : Hegel and contemporary philosophy of action
    In 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
  •  107
    The things we do and why we do them
    Palgrave-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
  •  10
    Human 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
  • 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.
  •  101
    Philosophy of mind
    Philosophical Books 46 (2): 170-174. 2005.
  •  13
    Collective action
    The Philosophers' Magazine 72 101-102. 2016.
  •  24
    An Honest Display of Fakery: Replicas and the Role of Museums
    Royal 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
  •  52
    Are the reasons for which we act the causes of our actions? In the nine essays collected here (including a major historical overview by the editors), experts in the field re-evaluate the history and current state of the reasons/causes debate.