# Constantine Sandis

Constantine Sandis FRSA (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Σάνδης; born 1 October 1976) is a Greek and British philosopher and entrepreneur. Having worked on philosophy of action, moral psychology, David Hume, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, in 2013 he became Professor of Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University. He is currently Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire and co-founding Director (together with CEO Louise Chapman, whom he is married to) of the author services firm Lex Academic.

## Biography

Sandis read Literae Humaniores at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford, where he was taught by Gabriele Taylor, Roger Crisp, Alison Denham, and A.C. Grayling, as well as Peter Hacker at St John's College, Oxford, Katherine Morris at Mansfield College, Oxford, and Hugh Rice at Christ Church, Oxford. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Reading (2005), under the supervision of Jonathan Dancy. Having worked at Oxford Brookes University from 2005 to 2015, he subsequently moved to Hertfordshire, where he is currently Visiting Professor of Philosophy. He is also the editor of Why Philosophy Matters, Anthem Studies in Wittgenstein and "Philosophers in Depth". Sandis writes a quarterly opinion column for The Philosophers' Magazine, contributes to Times Higher Education and The Times Literary Supplement, and frequently appears as a guest on radio programmes such as The Moral Maze, Analysis, and Free Thinking. He is Secretary of the British Wittgenstein Society and a Research Associate at the Waterloo Institute for Hellenic Studies and CRÉ - University of Montreal.

## Research

Sandis' research has primarily focused on the philosophy of action but he has also written about reasons, moral psychology, and understanding, as well as exegetical accounts of related works by Hume, Hegel, Anscombe, and Wittgenstein. His 2012 book The Things We Do and Why We Do Them argues for a pluralist account of actions and their explanations, and includes the controversial view that the reasons for which we act cannot in themselves explain why any action occurs. Since then he has published numerous articles defending the view that understanding others is not reducible to obtaining information about their 'mental contents' and that, consequently, no theory about the nature of such access can account for understanding others, which requires the sharing of behaviour. He has also collaborated with Microsoft Research on designing intelligible AI and co-written papers on the ethics of risk-taking with Nassim Nicholas Taleb. More recently, he has been writing on a wide variety of topics, from gender to Bob Dylan.

## Publications

Books
* New Essays on the Explanation of Action, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
* A Companion to the Philosophy of Action, with Timothy O'Connor, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
* Hegel on Action, with Arto Laitinen, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
* The Things We Do and Why We Do Them, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
* Human Nature, with Mark Cain, Cambridge University Press, 2012.
* Reasons and Causes: Causalism and Anti-Causalim in the Philosophy of Action, with Giuseppina D'Oro, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
* Cultural Heritage Ethics: Between Theory and Practice, Open Book Publishers, 2014.
* Philosophy of Action: An Anthology, with Jonathan Dancy, Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.
* Philosophy of Action from Suarez to Anscombe, Routledge, 2018.
* Character and Causation: Hume's Philosophy of Action, Routledge, 2019.
* Raisons et responsabilité: Essais de philosophie de l’action, Ithaque, 2021 [2nd edition: Eliott editions, 2024].
* Dylan at 80, with Gary Browning, Imprint Academic, 2021.
* Extending Hinge Epistemology, with Daniele Moyal-Sharrock, Anthem Press, 2022.
* Πρόθεση [Greek translation of G.E.M. Anscombe's Intention], with Evgenia Mylonaki, Crete University Press, 2024.
* Real Gender: A Cis Defence of Trans Realities, with Daniele Moyal-Sharrock, Polity, 2024.
* From Action To Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Reasons and Responsibility, Bloomsbury, 2024.
* Wittgenstein on Other Minds: Strangers in a Strange Land, Anthem, 2025.
Articles
* Sandis, Constantine (2021). "Virtue Ethics and Particularism". Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume. 44 (3): 205–232. doi:10.1093/arisup/akab013. hdl:2299/24010..
* Sandis, Constantine (2021). "No Picnic: Cavell on Rule-Descriptions". Philosophical Investigations. 95 (1): 295–317. doi:10.1111/phin.12308. hdl:2299/24983. S2CID 233882077..
* ‘Who Are 'We' for Wittgenstein?’ in (ed. H. Appelqvist),Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language (Routledge, 2019), Ch.8.
* ‘Are Reasons Like Shampoo?’ in (ed. G. Schumann),Explanation in Action Theory and Historiography (Routledge, 2019), Ch.8.
* "Hegel on Purpose (with A. Laitinen)". Hegel Bulletin. 40 (3): 444–463. 2019. doi:10.1017/hgl.2019.12. hdl:2299/23159. S2CID 203391941.
* Sandis, Constantine (2019). "Making Ourselves Understood". Wittgenstein-Studien. 10 (1): 242–260. doi:10.1515/witt-2019-0015. S2CID 189294209.
* "Kant and Hegel on Purposive Action (with A. Laitinen & E. Mayr)". Philosophical Explorations. 21 (1): 90–107. 2019. doi:10.1080/13869795.2017.1421693. hdl:2299/20302. S2CID 149096200.
* "The Doing & the Deed". Royal Institute of Philosophy. 80: 105–126. 2017. doi:10.1017/S1358246117000121. hdl:2299/19981. S2CID 149218779.
* "Verbal Reports and "Real' Reasons". Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. 18: 267–280. 2016. doi:10.1007/s10677-015-9576-6. hdl:2299/17612. S2CID 145390834.
* "One Fell Swoop: Small Red Book Historicism Before and After Davidson". Journal of the Philosophy of History. 9 (3): 372–92. 2015. doi:10.1163/18722636-12341308. hdl:2299/19326.
* Taleb, Nassim N.; Sandis, Constantine (2014). "The Skin In The Game Heuristic for Protection Against Tail Events (with Nassim N. Taleb)". Review of Behavioral Economics. 1 (1–2): 1–21. arXiv:1308.0958. doi:10.1561/105.00000006.
* ‘‘Can Action Explanations Ever be Non-Factive?’’ in (eds B. Hooker, M. Little, and D. Backhurst), Thinking about Reasons (OUP, 2013), pp.29-49.
* Sandis, Constantine (2015). "The Objects of Action Explanation". Ratio. 25 (3): 26–44. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9329.2012.00545.x.
* ‘The Experimental Turn and Ordinary Language’, Essays in Philosophy, Vol 11. No 2. (July 2010), 181-96.
* "The Man Who Mistook his Handlung for a Tat". Hegel Bulletin. 31 (2): 35–60. 2010. doi:10.1017/S0263523200000057. S2CID 170894067.