About Greg

Hello!  I’m Greg Sadler, President and co-Founder of ReasonIO.  In my work, I engage in public speaking, content production, consulting, philosophical counseling, and provide 1-on-1 tutorials.  All of these activities are geared towards making resources of classical and contemporary philosophy available and accessible to non-philosophers – putting philosophy into practice.

That is the motto we chose for ReasonIO, precisely because it expresses a passion Andi and I share in common.  Philosophy should not be a dry, dull discipline whose ideas and texts are restricted to a narrow academic elite.  That is not what it was been in the hands of great practitioners and theorists – people like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Rene Descartes, Mary Wollstonecraft, David Hume, or Friedrich Nietzsche just to mention a few.  These thinkers treated Philosophy as either itself a way of life, or as a mode of rigorous and integrative thinking that would illuminate one’s life.

I place myself and my own work within that great tradition that regards – and makes the case for – philosophy as relevant to all aspects of life, ranging from workplace and career to personal relationships, from organizational leadership to politics and society, from the great perennial questions to attempts to work out personal answers to them.

In effect, I move between two worlds as a bilingual translator – the world of traditional academia, in which I write, teach, consult, and research – and the wider world in which we all (including academics) live, work, think, love, and deal with equally fundamental issues.

My Backstory

After earning an M.A. and a Ph.D in Philosophy from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (in 1997 and 2002), I was a Faculty Fellow with Notre Dame University’s Erasmus Institute (2005), studying models of practical reasoning (under Alasdair MacIntyre).  I have also been a Charles Chesnutt Library Fellow, studying information literacy (2009-2010) and a Service Learning Fellow with the Center for Community Justice and Service Learning (2010-2011), applying the pedagogy of service learning to Critical Thinking classes and curricula.  Most recently, I was a Visiting Scholar at European Graduate School (2014) and a Visiting Researcher at the Institute for Saint Anselm Studies (2015)

My first full-time teaching position was in Ball State University’s 4-year degree program, teaching Philosophy and Religious Studies courses behind the walls of a maximum security prison.  My next position brought me to Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, where in addition to teaching Philosophy and Critical Thinking courses, I became involved in academic leadership, faculty development, and assessment of student learning.  Just to mention three examples of those types of work:  I helped design FSU’s 10-year Quality Enhancement Plan, partnered with the School of Business and Economics to co-found an Ethics in Business Education Project, and oversaw, improved, and implemented institution-wide assessment of student learning.

While up for early tenure and promotion at FSU – and in the worst academic job market in years – I made a difficult decision to leave a secure full-time academic position, relocate to New York, and start ReasonIO with my wife and partner, Andi Sciacca.  Continuing to teach Philosophy and Religious Studies courses part-time, I devoted much of my energy and efforts to a new career as an “academic entrepreneur,” developing and delivering high-quality products to individuals, institutions, and organizations, and offering philosophical resources more broadly to the general public, as a genuinely common good.

My Current Work and Projects

Much of my more popularly-oriented work is carried out online.  I have developed a philosophy-focused YouTube channel that is approaching 50,000 subscribers and has over 4.5 million views – largely providing low-tech, high-content, 10-minute  to 1-hour long lecture videos.  I meet weekly by video-conferencing with clients spanning the globe, located on five continents.

I’m active on educational platforms such as Academia and Curious, where I provide resources for studying philosophical texts and thinkers.  I also develop courses and teach online for our ReasonIO Academy.  I am proficient in a variety of course management systems used to design entire online learning environments for my students.

In addition to my paid academic, organizational, and public speaking engagements, I also devote a portion of my time gratis to deliver popular talks and workshops in a variety of settings.  I also engage in philosophical consulting with individuals and institutions on matters ranging from critical thinking and ethics, to curriculum design and assessment of student learning, to personal development and institutional effectiveness.

That’s already quite a lot – so I’ll close by mentioning several of the partners, projects, communities and institutions with whom I’m particularly engaged.  I’m the Editor of Stoicism Today, the producer of the Half Hour Hegel series, and the president of our local SOPHIA (Society of Philosophers in America) chapter.