Interpreting Interpretations: The Aphorism in the Practice of the Renaissance Astrologers (2015)
How may we interpret the interpretations of the astrologers? This hermeneutic question is approached through the ubiquitous astrological device of the aphorism. Underlying the apparently arbitrary assemblage of these pithy maxims we discern a thematic methodology of exemplary connotation and metaphor. Theory and practice need to be distinguished, which permits going beyond the often merely nominal Aristotelian-Ptolemaic gloss by which Renaissance astrologers might justify their craft. This reveals a poetic and divinatory form, wherein the meaning of the aphorism is determined by its context, the temporality and lingUistic mood of its interpretation, viz. whether speculative and conjectural, the subjunctive of prediction, or aSSigned and revealed, the indicative of the casebook demonstration. This 'divinatory stochastic' analysis necessitates a reading-against the historical and theoretical view of astrology as proto-science. The problem of competing interpretations is illustrated with reference to a horoscope study by Girolamo Cardano, where it is suggested that contemporary scholarship, to the extent that it lacks an appreciation of astrological practice, has not adequately addressed the task of interpreting the astrologers' interpretations.
...MoreBook Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum; Charles Burnett (2015) From Māshāʾallāh to Kepler: Theory and Practice in Medieval and Renaissance Astrology.
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