Astrology as a social science: Volume 1 The four matrizes Taschenbuch – 23. Mai 2023

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The ‘truth’ of social science is based on the ‘re-constructing of constructions’ (Schütz), ‘observing the observations’ (Luhmann) and the ‘self-constitution of the habitus bearers’ (Bourdieu) as basic operations of systems. Social causality is always a recursive multi-causality, there is no ‘one cause’ for a relational event. Observations and testing methods are largely reactive, i.e., observation influences and changes theory. Measured ‘facts’ in sociology and astrology are therefore never evidence that something is ‘proven’, but on the contrary that something needs closer examination because stereotyping has occurred.The horoscope is a practical tool to develop interview techniques, working with biographies, systemic constellations, investigating generational issues of social behavior, validating personality tests, improving time management, accompanying difficult phases of life and much more. It is the question how we approach social science-oriented astrology. Firstly, Wilhelm Dilthey’s insight that the social sciences are less about explaining than about understanding and comprehension. We cannot prove human behavior, but we can try to describe it in its diversity from as many sides as possible and also not ignore inner perceptions.Personality, attachment and role-playing are always the result of idealized ideas as types that never exist in social reality. The second concept worth mentioning is therefore Ferdinand Tönnies’ concept of normal types We cannot grasp reality without concepts from the phenomenal realm of idealized objects, which are grasped axiomatically and deductively. That is, derived from ideal figures such as the homo economicus, the novice driver, the immigrant, the lateral thinker, the nerd, the Uranian, etc., which must be assumed to exist in order to be able to infer individual characteristics from them.
Thirdly, Max Weber’s postulate of freedom of value judgement is important, according to which the social researcher should put his own attitudes aside and conduct research free of ideological constraints. Or to be aware of one’s dependencies and open to criticism of one’s own approach. The fourth is Georg Simmel’s realization that something like society (and the categories about it) does not exist at all, but consists of a reciprocal interplay of individual parts and subsystems. Subjects become objects and vice versa, and only perspective sometimes determines the acceptance of social exclusion phenomena and observation of deviance. It is a problem for astrologers when they only advise people from certain circles and accept only their ways of behavior and judgement.
Fifth, with Berger and Luckmann, social institutions are equivalents of psychological constitutions and vice versa. Institutions are structures that outsource functions of society by means of typologizations and rehearse symbolic representations by means of role plays. Going as far back as Babylon, we already find the god Marduk, who presides over the administration as an image of the planet Saturn and the principle of law and rulership. As an individual type, he is often described as narrow-minded and aloof. “Institutionalization takes place as soon as habitualized actions are reciprocally typified by types of agents. And this brings us to the sixth correspondence of astrological and social scientific paradigms. In the course of civilization, man had to master more and more symbols and forms of expression, and it was one of the main tasks of medieval astrology, when there were no social sciences yet, to reduce the complexity of the different forms of ritual and to establish generalized role patterns that had cross-cultural significance. And seventhly, with Michel Foucault, in science we are dealing with discourses based on power relations that determine what can and cannot be talked about. The reality of those who supposedly strive for objective facts is essentially determined by those who already have interpretive sovereignty anyway.