Posts Tagged ‘astrology’
“Mathematics has not a foot to stand on which is not purely metaphysical”*…
Lest we forget…
A forgotten episode in French-occupied Naples in the years around 1800—just after the French Revolution—illustrates why it makes sense to see mathematics and politics as entangled. The protagonists of this story were gravely concerned about how mainstream mathematical methods were transforming their world—somewhat akin to our current-day concerns about how digital algorithms are transforming ours. But a key difference was their straightforward moral and political reading of those mathematical methods. By contrast, in our own era we seem to think that mathematics offers entirely neutral tools for ordering and reordering the world—we have, in other words, forgotten something that was obvious to them.
In this essay, I’ll use the case of revolutionary Naples to argue that the rise of a new and allegedly neutral mathematics—characterized by rigor and voluntary restriction—was a mathematical response to pressing political problems. Specifically, it was a response to the question of how to stabilize social order after the turbulence of the French Revolution. Mathematics, I argue, provided the logical infrastructure for the return to order. This episode, then, shows how and why mathematical concepts and methods are anything but timeless or neutral; they define what “reason” is, and what it is not, and thus the concrete possibilities of political action. The technical and political are two sides of the same coin—and changes in notions like mathematical rigor, provability, and necessity simultaneously constitute changes in our political imagination…
Massimo Mazzotti with an adaptation from his new book, Reactionary Mathematics: A Genealogy of Purity: “Foundational Anxieties, Modern Mathematics, and the Political Imagination,” @maxmazzotti in @LAReviewofBooks.
* Thomas De Quincey
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As we count on it, we might send carefully-calculated birthday greetings to Regiomontanus (or Johannes Müller von Königsberg, as he was christened); he was born on this date in 1436. A mathematician, astrologer, and astronomer of the German Renaissance, he and his work were instrumental in the development of Copernican heliocentrism during his lifetime and in the decades following his death.
“I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical.”*…
(Roughly) Daily has looked at almanacs before (e.g., here and here), but never with an eye to their astrological underpinnings. Livia Gershon plugs that gap…
Some Christians today see astrology as a clear affront to their beliefs, and possibly a dangerous manifestation of the occult. And yet, as historian T.J. Tomlin writes, through the eighteenth century, it was a central aspect of the almanacs that were ubiquitous in Protestant American homes.
By 1800, Tomlin writes, U.S. printers produced enough almanacs to provide one to every household in the country. People turned to the books for a clear, simple idea of how the universe worked. Their astrological calculations helped readers gain practical know-how about agricultural management, weather, and personal health.
…
Like the study of the natural world in general in that time and place, almanacs were rooted in Protestantism. They presented simple, widely held religious ideas—God’s power, redemption through Christ, the promise of heaven—to an increasingly literate public. “This was the liturgy of early American popular culture,” Tomlin writes.
But there were debates about what sort of astrology was compatible with this religious belief. “Natural astrology,” using the movements of heavenly bodies to draw conclusions about agriculture, medicine, and the weather, was widely regarded as “a way to illuminate God’s creative impulse in the universe,” Tomlin writes. But “judicial astrology,” predicting the events of individual lives or political affairs, might be seen as blasphemous…
Wildly popular, almanacs helped people understand farming and health through the movement of the planets, in a way compatible with their faith: “The Protestant Astrology of Early American Almanacs,” from @LiviaGershon in @JSTOR_Daily.
* Arthur C. Clarke
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As we study the stars, we might send multi-faceted birthday greetings to the painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, physicist, chemist, anatomist, botanist, geologist, cartographer, and writer– the archetypical Renaissance Man– Leonardo da Vinci. Quite possibly the greatest genius of the last Millennium, he was born on this date in 1452.
While Leonardo’s attention (and thus his notebooks) extended to astronomy, there’s no evidence that he believed in astrology. That said, his chart has been cast myriad times (e.g., here).
Self-portrait in red chalk, circa 1512-15 [source]
“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust”*…
Beyond the Prisoner’s Dilemma— an interactive guide to game theory and why we trust each other: The Evolution of Trust, from Nicky Case (@ncasenmare), via @frauenfelder@mastodon.cloud in @Recomendo6.
* J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
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As we rethink reciprocal reliance, we might send far-sighted birthday greetings to Michel de Nostredame; he was born on this date in 1503. Better known as Nostradamus, he was an astrologer, apothecary, physician, and reputed seer, who is best known for his book Les Prophéties (published in 1555), a collection of 942 poetic quatrains allegedly predicting future events.
In the years since the publication of his Les Prophéties, Nostradamus has attracted many supporters, who, along with some of the popular press, credit him with having accurately predicted many major world events. Other, more critical, observers note that many of his supposed correct calls were the result of “generous” (or plainly incorrect) translations/interpretations; and more generally, that Nostradamus’ genius for vagueness allows– indeed encourages– enthusiasts to “find” connections where they may or may not exist.
“I’ve always lived by signs”*…
Justin McElroy, Municipal Affairs Reporter for CBC Vancouver, has taken to Twitter to perform an important public service…
I’ve identified 185 communities in the province of British Columbia that have welcome signs.
And in this thread, I’m going to rank every single one.
You can follow the thread, which is underway now: Rating the Welcome Signs of British Columbia, from @j_mcelroy. Via @broderick.
* Iris Murdoch, Henry and Cato
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As we contemplate connoisseurship, we might might send significant birthday greetings to a master of a different kind of sign, William Lilly; he was born on this date in 1602 (O.S.). Described as a genius at something “that modern mainstream opinion has since decided cannot be done at all,” he was an astrologer who was powerfully influential in his own time and hugely impactful on the future course of Western astrological tradition.
Lilly’s autobiography, published towards the end of his life in 1681, at the request of his patron Elias Ashmole, gives candid accounts of the political events of his era, and biographical details of contemporaries that are unavailable elsewhere. It was described, in the late 18th century, as “one of the most entertaining narratives in our language”, in particular for the historical portrayal it leaves of men like John Dee, Simon Forman, John Booker, Edward Kelley, including a whimsical first meeting of John Napier and Henry Briggs, respective co-inventors of the logarithm and Briggsian logarithms, and for its curious tales about the effects of crystals and the appearance of Queen Mab. In it, Lilly describes the friendly support of Oliver Cromwell during a period in which he faced prosecution for issuing political astrological predictions. He also writes about the 1666 Great Fire of London, and how he was brought before the committee investigating the cause of the fire, being suspected of involvement because of his publication of images, 15 years earlier, which depicted a city in flames surrounded by coffins… To his supporters he was an “English Merlin”; to his detractors he was a “juggling wizard and imposter.”…
Wikipedia
“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies”*…
It was the summer of 1941 and a British astrologer named Louis de Wohl was becoming wildly popular among Americans with his increasingly accurate predictions in his stargazer column, “Stars Foretell.” As de Wohl’s reader numbers escalated to meteoric heights, real world consequences ensued. In August 1941, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lifted its long-standing ban against astrologers and aired an exclusive interview with the man being heralded as “The Modern Nostradamus.” Just a few weeks later, for the first time in U.S. history, an astrologer was filmed for a U.S. newsreel, the TV news of the day. “Pathé News released the newsreels’ seminal plunge into prophecy with a nation-wide audience of 39,000,000 sitting as judge jury and witness,” declared a press release issued by de Wohl’s manager. Except it was a facade; it was all fake news.
De Wohl’s newspaper column was part of an elaborate black propaganda campaign to organize American public opinion in favor of Britain, and to ultimately get the U.S. to enter the war. In reality, de Wohl worked for British Intelligence (MI5). His so-called manager was none other than the legendary spymaster Sir William Stephenson, a man whom Winston Churchill famously called Intrepid. The average American had no idea…
The story of a man, born in Berlin, who went on, after the war, to become a fabulously-successful Catholic novelist (16 of his books were made into films): “Louis de Wohl: The Astrologer Who Helped Foil Hitler.”
[Image above, from here]
* Winston Churchill, who practiced what he preached
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As we look to the stars, we might send a cheery greeting to David Hume, the Scottish Positivist philosopher; he was born on this date in 1711. Bishop Berkeley may have wondered if, when a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, it makes a sound. For Hume, the question was whether the tree was beautiful (“Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them. “)
But then, it’s also the birthday of the (somewhat more “practical”) Roman Emperor and Stoic Marcus Aurelius, born on this date in 121. “Why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements?” Why indeed?
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