Astrology and astronomy

Astrology and Astronomy

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Astrology and astronomy

Astrology and astronomy are historically one and the same discipline , and were only gradually recognized as separate in western

Western world

The term Western world, the West or the Occident can have multiple meanings dependent on its context . Accordingly, the basic definition of what constitutes "the West" varies, expanding and contracting over time, in relation to various historical circumstances....
17th century philosophy (the "Age of Reason

Age of reason

Age of reason may refer to the following:* 17th-century philosophy, as a successor of the Renaissance and a predecessor to the Age of Enlightenment...
").

Since the 18th century they have come to be regarded as completely separate disciplines. Astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is the science of Astronomical object and Phenomenon that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere . It is concerned with the evolution, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and motion of celestial objects, as well as the physical cosmology....
, the study of objects and phenomena beyond the Earth's atmosphere, is accepted as a science

Science

In its broadest sense, science refers to any systematic knowledge or practice. In its more usual restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research....
and is a widely studied academic discipline. Astrology

Astrology

Astrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of astronomical object and related details can provide useful information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters....
, which uses the apparent positions of celestial objects as the basis for psychology, prediction of future events, and other esoteric knowledge, is not widely regarded as science and is typically defined as a form of divination

Divination

Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of a standardized process or ritual. Diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency....
.

orically, most cultures have not made a clear distinction between the two disciplines, lumping them both together as one.

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Encyclopedia

Astrology and astronomy are historically one and the same discipline , and were only gradually recognized as separate in western

Western world

Age of reason

Astronomy

Science

Astrology

Divination

Overview

Historically, most cultures have not made a clear distinction between the two disciplines, lumping them both together as one. In ancient Babylonia

Babylonia

Babylonia was a state in Lower Mesopotamia , Babylon as its franklin. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad....
, famed for its astrology

History of astrology

The history of Astrology encompasses a great span of human history and many cultures. The belief in a connection between the cosmos and terrestrial matters has also played an important part in human history....
, there were not separate roles for the astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies Celestial body such as planets, stars, and Galaxy.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using physical laws....
as predictor of celestial phenomena, and the astrologer

Astrologer

An astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an undertaking's beginning, etc....
as their interpreter; both functions were performed by the same person. This overlap does not mean that astrology and astronomy were always regarded as one and the same. In ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
, presocratic thinkers such as Anaximander

Anaximander

Anaximander was a pre-Socratic Ancient Greece philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia. He belonged to the Milesian school and learned the teachings of his master Thales....
, Xenophanes

Xenophanes

of Colophon was a Greece philosopher, poet, and social and religious critic. Our knowledge of his views comes from fragments of his poetry, surviving as quotations by later Greek writers....
, Anaximenes

Anaximenes of Miletus

Anaximenes of Miletus was a Greece Pre-Socratic philosopher from the latter half of the 6th century BC, probably a younger contemporary of Anaximander, whose pupil or friend he is said to have been....
, and Heraclides

Heraclides

Heraclides may refer to:* Heracleides of Cyme , a little-attested Greek historian* Heraclides , a Macedonian painter* Heraclides of Aenus, one of Plato's students...
speculated about the nature and substance of the stars and planets. Astronomers such as Eudoxus

Eudoxus of Cnidus

Eudoxus of Cnidus was a Ancient Greece astronomer, mathematician, scholar and student of Plato. Since all his own works are lost, our knowledge of him is obtained from secondary sources, such as Aratus's poem on astronomy....
(contemporary with Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
) observed planetary motions and cycles, and created a geocentric cosmological model that would be accepted by Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
-- this model generally lasted until Ptolemy

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman Greek mathematics, Greek astronomy, geographer and astrologer. He lived in History of Roman Egypt, and was probably born there in a town in the Thebaid called Ptolemais Hermiou; he died in Alexandria around 168 AD....
, who added epicycles to explain certain motions. However, around 250 B.C., Aristarchus of Samos

Aristarchus of Samos

Aristarchus or Aristarch was a Greeks astronomer and mathematician, born on the island of Samos Island, in Greece. He was the first Greek, and the first man in general, to present an explicit argument for a Heliocentrism of the solar system, placing the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of the known universe....
postulated a proto-heliocentric theory, which would not be reconsidered for nearly two millennia (Copernicus), as Aristotle's geocentric model was favored. The Platonic school promoted the study of astronomy as a part of philosophy because the motions of the heavens demonstrate an orderly and harmonious cosmos. In the third century B.C.E., Babylonian astrology began to make its presence felt in Greece. Astrology was criticized by Hellenistic philosophers such as the Academic Skeptic Carneades and Middle Stoic Panaetius. However, the notions of the Great Year (when all the planets complete a full cycle and return to their relative positions) and eternal recurrence were Stoic doctrines that made divination and fatalism possible.

While the Greek words astrologia and astronomia were often used interchangeably, they were conceptually not the same. Both words more often than not referred to astronomy. The words for astrology proper, were more typically apotelesma and katarkhê.

The earliest to differentiate between the terms astronomy and astrology was Isidore of Seville

Isidore of Seville

Saint Isidore of Seville was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and has the reputation of being one of the greatest scholars of the early Middle Ages....
in the 7th century, while the earliest semantic

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in communication. The word is derived from the Greek language word s??a?t???? , "significant", from s??a??? , "to signify, to indicate" and that from s??a , "sign, mark, token"....
distinction between astronomy and astrology was given by the Persian

Persian people

Persian identity, at least in terms of language, is traced to the ancient Indo-Iranians , who arrived in parts of Greater Iran circa 2000-1500 BCE....
astronomer

Islamic astronomy

In the history of astronomy, Islamic astronomy or Arabic astronomy refers to the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age , and mostly written in the Arabic language....
and astrologer

Islamic astrology

Islamic astrology, in Arabic ilm al-nujum or ilm al-falak, is the study of the heavens by early Muslims. In early Arabic sources, ilm al-nujum was used to refer to both Astrology and astronomy....
Abu Rayhan al-Biruni circa 1000. Astrology was also refuted by al-Biruni and other medieval Muslim astronomers

Islamic astronomy

Al-Farabi

Abu Nasr al-Farabi , known in the Western world as Alpharabius , was a Muslim polymath and one of the greatest Islamic sciences and Early Islamic philosophys of History of Iran and the Islamic Golden Age in his time....
(Alpharabius), Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, Avicenna

Avicenna

, known as Abu Ali Sina Balkhi or Ibn Sina and commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna , was a Persian people polymath and the foremost Islamic medicine and Early Islamic philosophy of his time....
and Averroes

Averroes

Abu 'l-Walid Mu?ammad ibn A?mad ibn Rushd , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was an Al-Andalus-Arab Muslim polymath: a master of early Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki Sharia and Fiqh, Logic in Islamic philosophy, Psychology in medieval Islam, Arabic music theory, and the Scien...
. Their reasons for refuting astrology were often due to both scientific (the methods used by astrologers being conjectural rather than empirical

Empirical

The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment, as opposed to theory. A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or Logical consequence that are observable by the senses....
) and religious (conflicts with orthodox Islamic scholars

Ulema

Ulema refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of Sharia law....
) reasons. Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1292-1350), in his Miftah Dar al-SaCadah, used empirical arguments in astronomy in order to refute astrology and divination

Divination

Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
as astrological texts from Hellenistic

Hellenistic civilization

File:Diadochen1.pngHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Ancient Greece influence in the Classical Antiquity from 323 BC to about 146 BC ....
and Arabic astrologers

Islamic astrology

Islamic astrology, in Arabic ilm al-nujum or ilm al-falak, is the study of the heavens by early Muslims. In early Arabic sources, ilm al-nujum was used to refer to both Astrology and astronomy....
were translated into Latin. In the late Middle Ages

Late Middle Ages

The Late Middle Ages is a term used by historians to describe history of Europe in the periodization of the 14th and 15th centuries . The Late Middle Ages were preceded by the High Middle Ages, and followed by the Early modern Europe ....
, its acceptance or rejection often depended on its reception in the royal courts of Europe. Not until the time of Francis Bacon was astrology rejected as a part of scholastic metaphysics rather than empirical observation. A more definitive split between astrology and astronomy the West took place gradually in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when astrology was increasingly thought of as an occult sciencel or superstition by the intellectual elite. Because of their lengthy shared history, it sometimes happens that the two are confused with one another even today. Many contemporary astrologers, however, do not claim that astrology is a science, but think of it as a form of divination like the I-Ching, an art, or a part of a spiritual belief structure (influenced by trends such as Neoplatonism, Neopaganism, Theosophy, and Hinduism).

Distinguishing characteristics

* The primary goal of astronomy is to understand the physics

Physics

Physics is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as energy, force, and spacetime and all that derives from these, such as mass, charge, matter and its Motion ....
of the universe

Universe

The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and physical constants that govern them....
. Astrologers use astronomical calculations for the positions of celestial bodies

Ephemeris

An ephemeris is a table of values that gives the positions of astronomical objects in the sky at a given time or times. Different kinds are used for astronomy and astrology....
along the ecliptic

Ecliptic

The ecliptic is the apparent path that the Sun traces out in the sky during the year. As it appears to move in the sky in relation to the stars, the apparent path aligns with the planets throughout the course of the year....
and attempt to correlate celestial events (astrological aspects, sign positions

Astrological sign

Astrological signs represent twelve equal segments or divisions of the zodiac. According to astrology, celestial phenomena reflect or govern human activity on the principle of "Macrocosm and microcosm", so that the twelve signs are held to represent twelve basic personality types or characteristic modes of expression....
) with earthly events and human affairs. Astronomers consistently use the scientific method

Scientific method

Scientific method refers to techniques for investigating phenomenon, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and Measure evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning....
, naturalistic

Naturalism (philosophy)

Naturalism is a philosophical position that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and natural law. In its broadest and strongest sense, naturalism is the metaphysics position that "nature is all there is and all basic truths are truths of nature." This is generally referred to as metaphysical or ontological natur...
presupposition

Presupposition

In the linguistic branch of pragmatics, a presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse....
s and abstract mathematical

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space, change, and related topics of pattern and form. Mathematicians seek out patterns whether found in numbers, space, natural science, computers, imaginary abstractions, or elsewhere....
reasoning to investigate or explain phenomena in the universe. Astrologers use mystical

Mysticism

Mysticism is the pursuit of communion with, Unio Mystica with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, Spirituality, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight....
/religious

Religion

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of myth, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendence quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth....
reasoning as well as traditional folklore

Folklore

Folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, superstitions, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group ....
, symbolism

Symbolism

Symbolism is the applied use of symbols: iconic representations that carry particular meanings.The term "symbolism" is limited to use in contrast to "representationalism"; defining the general directions of a linear spectrum - where in all symbolic concepts can be viewed in relation, and where changes in context may imply systemic changes...
and superstition

Superstition

Superstition is a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge. The word is often used pejoratively to refer to supposedly irrational beliefs of others, and its precise meaning is therefore subjective....
blended with mathematical predictions to explain phenomena in the universe. The scientific method is not consistently used by astrologers.

Astrologers practice their discipline geocentricically and they consider the universe to be harmonious, changeless and static, while astronomers believe that the universe is without a center and is dynamic, expanding outward
Big Bang

The Big Bang is the physical cosmology model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe supported by the most comprehensive and accurate explanations from current scientific method and observation....
.
Astrologers are generally working on the assumption that the universe is deterministic
Determinism

Determinism is the philosophy proposition that every event, including human cognition and behavior, decision and action, is causality determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. With numerous historical debates, many varieties and philosophical positions on the subject of determinism exist from traditions throughout...
and fully or mostly predictable; either that events occur orderly, predictable and predetermined, or that some process in the solar system give a frame for partial predeterminedness within the individual free will be able to work. Astronomers, on the contrary, generally adher to the scientific indetermination concept, claiming that nothing can actually be predetermined nor predicted, except in a shorter run and as a prognosis. Astronomers also adher to the strict philosophy of providing explanations according to established knowledge, and therefore generally reject astrology for erecting prognoses or exact divinations without connection to any known real world phenomenon.
Both astrologers and astronomers see Earth as being an integral part of the universe, that Earth and the universe are interconnected as one cosmos (not as being separate and distinct from each other). However, astrologers philosophically and mystically portray the cosmos as having a supernatural
Supernatural

The term supernatural or supranatural pertains to an order of existence beyond the scientifically visible universe. Religious miracles are typically supernatural claims, as are Spell and curses, divination, the belief that there is an afterlife for the dead, and innumerable others....
, metaphysical
Metaphysics

Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics....
and divine essence
Essence

In philosophy, essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance theory what it fundamentally is, and which it has by metaphysical necessity, and without which it loses its identity....
that actively influences world events and the personal lives of people.. Astronomers, as members of the scientific community, cannot use religious nor mystical explanations in their scientific articles, irrespective of their religious convictions and non-convictions. Scientific discources must provide explanations based on known measurable laws of nature
Physical law

A physical law or scientific law is a scientific generalization based on empiricism observations of physical behavior . Laws of nature are observable....
, so that the image provided explain that Earth is an integral part of the universe, celestial objects are just as humbly natural as terrestrial objects, being composed of exactly the same substance
Chemical substance

A chemical substance is a material with a specific Empirical formula. It is a concept that became firmly established in the late eighteenth century after work by the chemist Joseph Proust on the composition of some pure chemical compounds such as basic copper carbonate....
s, and controlled by exactly the same force
Force

In physics, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity. Force has both Euclidean_vector#Length of a vector and Direction , making it a Vector quantity....
s, as objects on Earth.

* As regards to constellations, their usage is yet one point that separate astrologers and astronomers. Astrologers did originally prepare horoscopes based on stars, but this is relatively uncommon today, and the signs of the zodiac

Zodiac

Zodiac denotes an annual cycle of twelve stations along the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the heavens through the constellations that divide the ecliptic into twelve equal zones of celestial longitude....
are symbol

Symbol

A symbol is something such as an entity, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention....
ic representations of 30° sectors measured from the vernal equinox. Those sectors names originated in real constellations, but because of the precession

Precession

Precession refers to a change in the direction of the axis of a rotation object. In physics, there are two types of precession, torque-free and torque-induced, the latter being discussed here in more detail....
, the distance between the sector and the real constellation have increased during thousands of years, making the sign of Aries

Aries (astrology)

Aries, the domestic sheep, is the first astrological sign in the Zodiac, originating from the Aries . In western astrology, this sign is no longer aligned with the constellation as a result of the Precession ....
differ from the constellation of Aries

Aries (constellation)

Aries is one of constellations of the zodiac, located between Pisces to the west and Taurus to the east. Its name is Latin for sheep, and its symbol is , representing a ram's horns....
by some 20° degrees. Astronomers, on the other hand, regard constellations as kind of old-fashioned memorizing patterns subdividing the sky into conventional areas to which immobile astronomical objects are members. Not all kinds of objects get an object designation according to the constellation pattern, most astronomical object catalogues disregard constellation as a name part of the designation, but in general discussions about an object, the constellations are mentioned as a general direction where the object can be seen. Short constellation myths are preserved and retold, as a "cultural extra", providing some insignificant "mysticism" in an otherwise technical and dry intellectual culture.

Historical divergence

Astrology and astronomy were indistinguishable for a very long time - the funding from astrology supported some astronomical research, which was in turn used to make more accurate ephemerides

Ephemeris

An ephemeris is a table of values that gives the positions of astronomical objects in the sky at a given time or times. Different kinds are used for astronomy and astrology....
for use in astrology. In Medieval Europe the word Astronomia was often used to encompass both disciplines as this included the study of astronomy and astrology jointly and without a real distinction; this was one of the original Seven Liberal Arts. Kings and other rulers generally employed court astrologers to aid them in the decision making in their kingdoms, thereby funding astronomical research. University medical students were taught astrology as it was generally used in medical practice

Medical astrology

Medical astrology is an ancient medical system that associates various parts of the body, diseases, and drugs as under the influence of the sun, moon, and planets, along with the twelve astrological signs....
.

Astronomy and astrology diverged over the course of the 17th through 19th centuries. Copernicus didn't practice astrology (nor empirical astronomy; his work was theoretical), but the most important astronomers before Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton, Fellow of the Royal Society was an English people physicist, mathematician, Astronomy, Natural philosophy, Alchemy, and Theology and one of the the 100 in human history....
were astrologers by profession -- Tycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe, born Tyge Ottesen Brahe , was a Danish nobility known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomy observations. Coming from Sk?neland, then part of Denmark, now part of modern-day Sweden, Brahe was well known in his lifetime as an astronomy and alchemy....
, Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler was a Germans mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, and key figure in the 17th century Scientific revolution. He is best known for his eponymous Kepler's laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astrononomy....
, and Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei was a Grand Duchy of Tuscany physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution....
. Newton most likely rejected astrology, however (as did his contemporary Christiaan Huygens

Christiaan Huygens

Christiaan Huygens was a prominent Netherlands mathematics, astronomer, physics, and horology. His work included early telescopic studies, investigations and inventions related to time keeping, and studies of both optics and centrifugal force....
), and interest in astrology declined after his era, helped by the increasing popularity of a Cartesian, "mechanistic" cosmology in the Enlightenment

Enlightenment

Enlightenment may refer to:...
.

Also relevant here was the development of better timekeeping

Chronometry

Chronometry is the science of the measurement of time, or timekeeping.It should not to be confused with chronology, the science of locating events in time, which often relies upon it....
instruments, initially for aid in navigation

Navigation

Navigation is the process of reading, and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks....
; improved timekeeping made it possible to make more exact astrological predictions -- predictions which could be tested, and which consistently proved to be false. By the end of the 18th century, astronomy was one of the major sciences of the Enlightenment model, using the recently codified scientific method

Scientific method

External links

- Information from Harvard University

Astrology and astronomy

Overview

Distinguishing characteristics

Historical divergence

See also

External links