Matthew Slater is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bucknell University, USA, having received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has co-edited such volumes as Carving Nature at its Joints, The Environment, and Reference and Referring and writes on issues in the philosophy of science and metaphysics.

Series Editor's Foreword Preface and Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Natural Kinds 3. Essentialism 4. Individualism 5. Metaphysics of Species for the Commitment-Wary 6. The Natural Kindness Approach 7. Pluralism & Realism Revisited References Index

What are species? Are they objective features of the world? If so, what sort of features are they? Slater presents a novel approach to these questions, aiming to accommodating the attractions to both realism and antirealism about species.