James Justus is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University. He has written numerous book chapters and journal articles on the philosophy of biology, the history of analytic philosophy and general philosophy of science.

Introduction: Why Philosophy of Ecology?; 1. The Ecological Niche; 2. Distinctively Ecological Laws and the Reality of Biological Communities; 3. The Balance of Nature; 4. Modeling in Ecology: Representation and Reduction; 5. Biodiversity; 6. Progress in Applied Ecology; 7. Fact and Value in Applied Ecology.

Introduces the philosophical issues which ecology poses about the biological world and the environmental sciences attempting to protect it.