 Though phylogenetics as we described it is largely an epistemological enterprise, biological systematics as a whole is filled with important and controversial metaphysical issues which might seem to be largely independent of problems of inference. Whether you treat taxa as traditional natural kinds (Devitt 2008), homeostatic property clusters (Boyd 1999; Wilson, Barker, &amp; Brigandt 2007), individuals (Ghiselin 1966, 1974; Hull 1976, 1978; Sober 1980; Ereshefsky 1991; Haber 2016a) or something else (Slater 2013, 2014) will typically carry little to no impact on debates about phylogenetic inference—especially as those played out in the philosophical literature.