Sapientia Astrologica: Astrology, Magic and Natural Knowledge, ca. 1250-1800: I. Medieval Structures (1250-1500): Conceptual, Institutional, Socio-Political, Theologico-Religious and Cultural

Description

This book explores the changing perspective of astrology from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era. It introduces a framework for understanding both its former centrality and its later removal from legitimate knowledge and practice. The discussion reconstructs the changing roles of astrology in Western science, theology, and culture from 1250 to 1500. The author considers both the how and the why. He analyzes and integrates a broad range of sources. This analysis shows that the history of astrology—in particular, the story of the protracted criticism and ultimate removal of astrology from the realm of legitimate knowledge and practice—is crucial for fully understanding the transition from premodern Aristotelian-Ptolemaic natural philosophy to modern Newtonian science. This removal, the author argues, was neither obvious nor unproblematic. Astrology was not some sort of magical nebulous hodge-podge of beliefs. Rather, astrology emerged in the 13th century as a richly mathematical system that served to integrate astronomy and natural philosophy, precisely the aim of the “New Science” of the 17th century. As such, it becomes a fundamentally important historical question to determine why this promising astrological synthesis was rejected in favor of a rather different mathematical natural philosophy—and one with a very different causal structure than Aristotle's. Front Matter ....Pages i-lxxxix Front Matter ....Pages 1-3 Ligamentum naturalis philosophiae et metaphysicae: Astrology and Aristotelian Natural Philosophy (H Darrel Rutkin)....Pages 5-39 Mathematizing the Picture: Mathematics, Perspectiva and Astrology in Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus (H Darrel Rutkin)....Pages 41-92 The Natural Philosophical Foundations for Astrological Revolutions: Albertus Magnus’s Commentary on the Pseudo-Aristotelian De Causis Proprietatum Elementorum (H Darrel Rutkin)....Pages 93-115 Defending Astrology: Roger Bacon and the Speculum Astronomiae (H Darrel Rutkin)....Pages 117-167 Front Matter ....Pages 169-171 Astrology and Theology in Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas: Fate, Divination and Providence (H Darrel Rutkin)....Pages 173-234 Astrology and Theology/Religion in Roger Bacon (H Darrel Rutkin)....Pages 235-270 Front Matter ....Pages 271-273 Imagines astronomicae (talismans) in the Speculum astronomiae, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas (H Darrel Rutkin)....Pages 275-315 Opera et verba sapientiae: Astrology and Magic in Roger Bacon (H Darrel Rutkin)....Pages 317-362 Front Matter ....Pages 363-365 Disciplinary Configurations: Astrology and the Mathematical Disciplines (H Darrel Rutkin)....Pages 367-383 Institutional Foundations: The Universities (H Darrel Rutkin)....Pages 385-421 Astrology in Society, Politics and Culture (H Darrel Rutkin)....Pages 423-463 Back Matter ....Pages 465-515