About The Course Designer - Dr. Greg Sadler


Hello! I'm Dr. Greg Sadler - the designer and instructor of this Epictetus' Enchridion course. I've created this page to introduce myself to you, and to provide you with some information about my work and interests. You'll be seeing a lot of me in the course videos!


Over the years, I've become a person who "wears many hats," as the expression goes. I started out as a traditional academic philosopher, focused on teaching, research, writing and publication - though working in a somewhat unusual position, teaching Philosophy and Religious Studies for six years at Indiana State Prison in Ball State University's now-defunct 4 year degree program. After that, I moved to Fayetteville State University, a struggling HBCU in North Carolina, where I taught and redesigned Critical Thinking courses, but also ended up developing expertise in academic leadership, assessment of student learning, faculty development, and lecture capture.

While at Fayetteville State University, I helped write their ten-year Quality Enhancement Plan, administered university-wide assessment in Critical Thinking, designed and ran a Writing Across the Curriculum pilot program focused on close reading, and started an Ethics in Business Education Program. I also made my first forays into producing YouTube videos as an educational resource, first for my students, and then for a broader, worldwide audience.

Although I was up for early promotion and tenure at FSU, I left and relocated to the Hudson Valley in New York - partly in order to build a new career as an academic entrepreneur, but still more in order to live with my then fiancee, now wife (and partner in ReasonIO), Andi Sciacca. Over the last four years, I've been engaged in a number of new endeavors, ranging from designing and teaching courses online for a variety of institutions, to providing public lectures and workshops, to helping clients through philosophical counseling and consulting, and most of all, creating philosophy-focused YouTube videos.

Back in October 2015, Andi and I moved back to our home state of Wisconsin, taking up an apartment in downtown Milwaukee. We're both from this area, and in fact we went to high school together and worked in the same building just blocks from here in our 20s. So, I've been in the process of building new networks of speaking opportunities and clients. We've been partnering in particular with local libraries to provide talks on philosophical topics and issues, and working as consultants with a local community radio station.

Throughout all this, I've remained active as a scholar and researcher (click here to see some of my publications). In fact, my various involvements have me stretched across the entire history of philosophy. I'm a member of the Center for Contemporary Studies in Aristotelian Ethics and Politics, the editor of Stoicism Today, and the producer of the Half Hour Hegel series. I've been an Erasmus Institute Fellow, studying theories of practical rationality with Alasdair MacIntyre, a visiting scholar at European Graduate School, and in addition to delivering the Saint Anselm Lecture, I've been had a research residency at the Institute for Saint Anselm Studies.

I'm not all philosophy all the time, of course - perhaps not even as much of the time as it deserves! - and with my off time, I tend to spend it engaged with my friends and family (there's quite a few of them), or involved with some of the other interests I've got. I'm not a chef, but I do cook quite a bit, and fairly well - mainly because I very much enjoy good food (and beer). I read quite a bit of classic fiction, speculative fiction, and other works all around in the humanities. When I can find the time, I play the banjo and occasionally putter with the bass guitar I used to play but passed on to my daughter.

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