Margarida Hermida

Dr. Margarida Hermida
Postdoctoral fellow within the project ‘Knowledge in Crisis’

Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Social Sciences
Franziskanergasse 1, 5020 Salzburg

E-Mail:

Room 2.01

• 2025 – 2026 Postdoctoral fellow within the Project ‘Knowledge in Crisis’
• 2023 – 2025 Jacobsen Postdoctoral Fellow, King’s College London
• 2023 PhD in Philosophy, University of Bristol (no corrections)
• 2012 PhD in Biology, University of Porto (distinction)
• 2006 MSc in Marine Science, University of Porto
• 2003 BSc in Biology, University of Porto

Areas of Specialisation

• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Biology
• Metaphysics

Publications in Philosophy

Edited Volume

• Hermida, M., & Ladyman, J. (Eds.) The Philosophy of Biophysics. MIT Press (forthcoming).

Peer-Reviewed Papers

• Hermida, M., & Okasha, S. (2025).  Function, chance and purpose in the biosphere: a critical examination of the Darwinized Gaia hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 380: 20240099.
• Hermida, M., & Ladyman, J. (2025).  Physical explanation and the autonomy of biology. Philosophy of Science, forthcoming.
• Hermida, M. (2024). Biological Antecedents Essentialism. Erkenntnis, forthcoming.
• Hermida, M. (2024).  Cats are not necessarily animals. Erkenntnis, 89: 1387–1406.
• Hermida, M. (2023).  Thought experiments, sentience, and animalism. Synthese, 202: 148.
• Hermida, M. (2022).  Natural selection of independently originated life clades. Philosophy of Science, 89(3): 454-470.
• Hermida, M. (2016).  Life on Earth is an individual. Theory in Biosciences, 35(1): 37-44.

Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters

• Hermida, M. (forthcoming). Life as a dispositional property. In V. Seifert, S. Ioannidis, & S. Psillos (Eds.), Laws and Powers in the Metaphysics of Science, Routledge.
• Hermida, M., & Ladyman, J. (forthcoming). Physics and Universal Biology. In Hermida, M., & Ladyman, J. (Eds.) The Philosophy of Biophysics. MIT Press.
• Hermida, M. (2021).  Interplanetary Expansion and the Deep Future. In J. Nicholas (Ed.), The Expanse and Philosophy: So Far Out Into the Darkness, Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 13-24.

Book Reviews

• Hermida, M. (2025).  Legitimizing Gaia: Can biosphere evolution fit the Darwinian framework? [Book review of Darwinizing Gaia: Natural Selection and Multispecies Community Evolution. W. Ford Doolittle. MIT Press, 2024. 272 pp, illus. $45.00 (ISBN: 978-0262549523, paperback).] BioScience, in press.