People   >   Senior members   >   Esa Díaz-León

  • Associate Professor of Philosophy

    E-mail: ediazleon AT ub DOT edu
    Phone: +34 934037904
    Address: C/Montalegre, 6, 4th floor, Barcelona 08001, Spain.
    Office number: 4026

    I received my PhD from the University of Sheffield (UK) in 2007, and my BA from the University of Murcia (Spain) in 2000. I was an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Manitoba (Canada) from 2008-14, and a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the UB from 2014-19. I specialize in philosophy of mind and language, and the philosophy of gender, race and sexuality. My main interests include the metaphysics of gender, race and sexual orientation, the nature of social construction, as well as methodological issues having to do with conceptual ethics.
    I am currently the co-PI (with Pepa Toribio) of a grant funded by MICIN on the Philosophy of Social Cognition (PID2021-124100NB-I00). I have been awarded an ICREA Academia 2023 prize.

Projects

List of Publications

Esa Díaz-León   |   2025
Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Revision without Changing the Subject: A Haslangerian Account

In: Isaac, Manuel Gustavo; Scharp, Kevin & Koch, Steffen (eds.), New Perspectives on Conceptual Engineering, Synthese Library, Springer Nature, pp. 25-46.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2024
The Metaphysics of Gender

Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009264167

Esa Díaz-León   |   2024
“Disagreement and the Meaning of Gender and Racial Terms”

In Baghramian, Maria, Carter, J. Adam & Cosker-Rowland, Rach (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Disagreement. Routledge, pp. 133-47.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2019
“Response-Dependence, Misgendering, and Passing: A Comment on Ásta’s Categories We Live By”

Journal of Social Ontology, 5(2), 245-49

Esa Díaz-León   |   2022
“Sexual Orientations: The Desire View”

In K. Maitra & J. McWeeny (eds.) Feminist Philosophy of Mind, Oxford University Press, pp. 294-310.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2022
“Sexual Orientations, Sexual Desire, and Choice”

In Brian D. Earp, Clare Chambers & Lori Watson (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality, Routledge, pp. 102-116.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2022
“The Meaning of ‘Woman’ and the Political Turn in Philosophy of Language”

In D. Bordonaba, V. Fernández-Castro & J.R. Torices (eds.) The Political Turn in Analytical Philosophy, De Gruyter, pp. 229-255.

Esa Díaz-León, Jennifer Saul   |   2018
“Feminist Philosophy of Language”

In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by E. Zalta, Fall 2018 edition.

Esa Díaz-León, Saray Ayala-López   |   2021
“On Language and Sexuality”

In Routledge Handbook of Social Philosophy of Language, edited by J. Khoo & R. Sterken, pp. 377-88.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2022
“Substantive metaphysical debates about gender and race: Verbal disputes and metaphysical deflationism”

Journal of Social Philosophy, 53(4), 556-574. https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12394.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2020
"Is Feminist Pornography Possible?"

American Philosophical Association Newsletter in Philosophy and Feminism, 20(2), pp. 8-10.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2020
"On the Conceptual Mismatch Argument: Descriptions, Disagreement, and Amelioration"

In T. Marques & A. Wikforss (eds), Shifting Concepts: The Philosophy and Psychology of Concept Variability, Oxford University Press, pp. 190-212, May 2020.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2019
"On how to achieve reference to covert social constructions"

Studia Philosophica Estonica, 12.1, pp. 34-43.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2019
"Relativism and Race"

In M. Kusch (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Relativism, Routledge, pp. 265-71.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2020
"The Meta-Problem of Consciousness and the Phenomenal Concept Strategy"

Journal of Consciousness Studies, 27 (5-6), pp. 62-73.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2020
"Descriptive vs Ameliorative Projects: The Role of Normative Considerations"

In A. Burgess, H. Cappelen & D. Plunkett (eds.) Conceptual Engineering & Conceptual Ethics, Oxford University Press, pp. 170-86, January 2020.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2020
“Pejorative Terms and the Semantic Strategy”

Acta Analytica, 35(1), pp. 23-34.  DOI: 10.1007/s12136-019-00392-2

Esa Díaz-León   |   2018
"On Haslanger's Meta-metaphysics: Social Structures and Metaphysical Deflationism"

Disputatio, vol. X (50), pp. 201-16.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2018
"Kinds of Social Construction"

In Pieranna Garavaso (ed.) Bloomsbury Companion to Analytic Feminism, Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 103-22.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2017
"Sexual Orientation as Interpretation? Sexual Desires, Concepts, and Choice"

Journal of Social Ontology, 3(2), pp. 231-48.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2017
"Feminist Metaphysics and Philosophy of Language"

In Carol Hay (ed.), Philosophy: Feminism. Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks, Macmillan Reference USA, pp. 251-71.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2017
"Epistemic Contextualism and Conceptual Ethics"

In Jonathan Ichikawa (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism, Taylor & Francis, pp. 71-80.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2016
"Phenomenal Concepts: Neither Circular Nor Opaque"

Philosophical Psychology, 29(8), pp. 1186-99.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2016
"Norms of Judgement, Naturalism, and Normativism about Content"

Philosophical Explorations 19(1), pp. 48-58.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2016
"'Woman' as a Politically Significant Term: A Solution to the Puzzle"

Hypatia 31(2), pp. 245-58.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2009
"How Many Explanatory Gaps Are There?"

APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers 8(2), pp. 33-35.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2008
"We are living in a material world (and I am a material girl)"

Teorema 27(3), pp. 85-101.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2012
"Social Kinds, Conceptual Analysis, and the Operative Concept: A Reply to Haslanger"

Humana.Mente–Journal of Philosophical Studies 22, pp. 57-74.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2015
"In Defence of Historical Constructivism about Races"

Ergo, 2(21), pp. 547-62.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2012
"Are Ghosts Scarier than Zombies?"

Consciousness & Cognition 21(2), pp. 747-8.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2008
"Defending the Phenomenal Concept Strategy"

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86(4), pp. 597-610.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2010
"Can Phenomenal Concepts Explain the Epistemic Gap?"

Mind 119(476), pp. 533-51.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2011
"Reductive Explanation, Concepts, and A Priori Entailment"

Philosophical Studies 155(1), pp. 99-116.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2012
"Actors are not Like Zombies"

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 112(1), pp. 115-22.

Esa Díaz-León   |   2014
"Do A Posteriori Physicalists Get Our Phenomenal Concepts Wrong?"

Ratio 27(1), pp. 1-16

Esa Díaz-León   |   2015
"What is Social Construction?"

European Journal of Philosophy, 23(4), pp. 1137-52.