I am an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at the Department of Philosophy, University of Manitoba (Winnipeg, MB, Canada).

My areas of specialization are Philosophy of Mind and Language, and I also have interests in Metaphysics, Epistemology, Feminist Philosophy, and Philosophy of Race.

In the Fall 2011, I am teaching PHIL 2150 Mind and Body, and PHIL 4460 Contemporary Issues I: Metaphysics of Gender and Race. In the Winter 2012, I will be on leave, visiting the LOGOS group at the University of Barcelona from January to June 2012.

Contact: esadiazleon AT gmail DOT com

Background: 

I did my undergraduate studies in philosophy at the University of Murcia (Spain) and the University of Hull (UK). In September 2001 I moved to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield (UK) to pursue the MA/Research Training Year in Philosophy (for which I got a "Best Performance" Prize), and later a PhD, which I started in October 2002. My PhD supervisors were Stephen Laurence (primary supervisor) and Rosanna Keefe (secondary supervisor); and also for a while, Dominic Gregory, who took over for one semester. 

I received my doctorate in 2007. My PhD thesis was on "Consciousness, Conceivability and Concepts". The viva took place on the 4th of October 2007 (which I passed with no corrections). My examiners were Jennifer Saul (U. Sheffield) and Manuel García-Carpintero (U. Barcelona). Whilst a graduate student, I did quite a bit of teaching in my Department, as a Teaching Assistant and also as a Teaching Fellow.

From March to June 2008 I was a Visitor at Logos - Logic, Language and Cognition Research Group (University of Barcelona, Spain). I moved to the University of Manitoba in July 2008.

Selected Publications:

"Actors are not like Zombies", forthcoming in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 2012.

"Are Ghosts Scarier than Zombies?", forthcoming in Consciousness and Cognition (published online on 25 June 2011).

"Reductive Explanation, Concepts, and A Priori Entailment", Philosophical Studies 155 (1), pp. 99-116, 2011.

"Can Phenomenal Concepts Explain the Epistemic Gap?", Mind 119 (476), pp. 933-51, 2010.

"How Many Explanatory Gaps Are There?", APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers 8 (2), pp. 33-35, 2009. 

"Defending the Phenomenal Concept Strategy", Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (4), pp. 597-610, 2008.

"We are living in a material world (and I am a material girl)", Teorema 27 (3), pp. 85-101, 2008.

Research:

The questions that first brought me to philosophy were mainly these: "What is the place of the mind in a natural world?" and "How do mind and language represent the world?". I am still pretty much interested in these issues. More specifically, my current research focuses on the following questions:

1. What is the nature of consciousness? Is consciousness physical? Is physicalism true?
   
2. What is the best theory of phenomenal concepts? Can we use this theory of phenomenal concepts in order to block anti-physicalist arguments?
3. What is the role of conceptual analysis in philosophy, and especially in metaphysics?
4. Is two-dimensional semantics any good?
5. What is the meaning of ‘woman’? Can we make sense of the sex-gender distinction? What does it mean to say that a category is socially constructed? Are gender, race and sexual orientation socially constructed?

News:

I have got a 3-year SSHRC Standard Research Grant for my project on "The Social Construction of Gender and Race" (2011-14). Total amount: 23,016 CAN$. Further details forthcoming!

The Philosophy Department at the University of Manitoba hosted the 39th meeting of the Society for Exact Philosophy, 26-28 May 2011. Conference organizers: Chris Tillman and myself.

I received a University of Manitoba Internal Research Grant for my research project "A Philosophical Account of Social Construction" (2009-10). Total amount:  4,403 CAN$. You can have a look at the research proposal here.