About Butterflies and Wheels

Butterflies and Wheels has been established in order to oppose a number of related phenomena. These include:

Pseudoscience that is ideologically and politically motivated.

Epistemic relativism in the humanities (for example, the idea that statements are only true or false relative to particular cultures, discourses or language-games).

Those disciplines or schools of thought whose truth claims are prompted by the political, ideological and moral commitments of their adherents, and the general tendency to judge the veracity of claims about the world in terms of such commitments.

There are two motivations for setting up the web site. The first is the common one having to do with the thought that truth is important, and that to tell the truth about the world it is necessary to put aside whatever preconceptions (ideological, political, moral, etc.) one brings to the endeavour.

The second has to do with the tendency of the political Left (which both editors of this site consider themselves to be part of) to subjugate the rational assessment of truth-claims to the demands of a variety of pre-existing political and moral frameworks. We believe this tendency to be a mistake on practical as well as epistemological and ethical grounds. Alan Sokal expressed this concern well, when talking about his motivation for the Sokal Hoax: ‘My goal isn't to defend science from the barbarian hordes of lit crit (we'll survive just fine, thank you), but to defend the Left from a trendy segment of itself. Like innumerable others from diverse backgrounds and disciplines, I call for the Left to reclaim its Enlightenment roots.’ (Reply to Social Text Editorial)

Why Butterflies and Wheels?

The web site takes its name from a comment made by the philosopher Mary Midgley in a footnote to an article she wrote called Gene Juggling. She had this to say about the work of Richard Dawkins:

Up till now, I have not attended to Dawkins, thinking it unnecessary to break a butterfly upon a wheel. But Mr Mackie’s article is not the only indication I have lately met of serious attention paid to his fantasies.

Richard Dawkins said of the footnote, correctly in our view, that it would be ‘hard to match, in reputable journals, for its patronizing condescension toward a fellow academic.’

If the footnote were the only thing wrong with Gene Juggling, then that would be bad enough. But, in fact, the whole article is riddled with elementary errors and misunderstanding. Why? Well, that’s a complicated story, but at least part of the reason has to do with the fact that Midgley’s motivation in writing the article was to challenge a moral outlook – psychological egoism – that she found repellent. That’s why Butterflies and Wheels is a suitable name for this web site. It’s a reminder that it is never a good idea to allow one’s political, ideological and moral commitments to infect the judgements that one makes about truth-claims which have nothing to do with such considerations.

Who are we?

Much of the content of Butterflies and Wheels is made up of contributions from independent academics (who may or may not have sympathy with our agenda). But editorially, we are two people:

Ophelia Benson (Editor)
Ophelia Benson is the joint-author (with Jeremy Stangroom) of Why Truth Matters (Continuum, 2006) and The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense (Souvenir, 2004), and Deputy Editor of The Philosophers' Magazine. She writes a monthly column for The Philosophers' Magazine Online.

Jeremy Stangroom (Associate Editor/Webmaster)
Jeremy has a PhD in political sociology. He’s the New Media Editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine and webmaster for The Royal Institute of Philosophy. And he's the editor/author of numerous books, including What Scientists Think (Routledge, 2005) and What Philosophers Think (with Julian Baggini - Continuum, 2003).

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