Editing Astrology (section)

=== Reception in the social sciences ===

The general consensus of astronomers and other natural scientists is that astrology is a pseudoscience which carries no predictive capability, with many philosophers of science considering it a "paradigm or prime example of pseudoscience."<ref>{{cite book | last=Grim | first=Patrick | title=Philosophy of Science and the Occult | publisher=State University of New York Press | publication-place=Albany | date=1990 | isbn=0-7914-0204-5 | oclc=21196067 |page=15}}</ref> Some scholars in the social sciences have cautioned against categorizing astrology, especially ancient astrology, as "just" a pseudoscience or projecting the distinction backwards into the past.<ref>{{cite book | last=Beck | first=Roger | title=A Brief History of Ancient Astrology | publisher=Blackwell Pub | publication-place=Malden, Massachusetts | date=2007 | isbn=978-0-470-77377-2 | oclc=214281257}}</ref> Thagard, while demarcating it as a pseudoscience, notes that astrology "should be judged as not pseudoscientific in classical or Renaissance times...Only when the historical and social aspects of science are neglected does it become plausible that pseudoscience is an unchanging category."{{sfn|Thagard|1978}} Historians of science such as Tamsyn Barton, [[Roger Beck]], [[Francesca Rochberg]], and [[Wouter J. Hanegraaff]] argue that such a wholesale description is anachronistic when applied to historical contexts, stressing that astrology was not pseudoscience before the 18th century and the importance of the discipline to the development of medieval science.{{sfn|Barton|1994}}{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2012}}{{sfn|Beck|2007}}<ref>{{cite book | last=Rochberg | first=Francesca | editor-first1=Paul T. | editor-first2=John | editor-last1=Keyser | editor-last2=Scarborough | title=Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World | chapter=Astral Sciences of Ancient Mesopotamia | publisher=Oxford University Press | date=2018-07-10 | pages=24–34 | doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199734146.013.62| isbn=978-0-19-973414-6 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last=Taub | first=Liba | title=The Rehabilitation of Wretched Subjects | journal=Early Science and Medicine | publisher=Brill | volume=2 | issue=1 | year=1997 | issn=1383-7427 | doi=10.1163/157338297x00023 | pages=74–87| pmid=11618896 }}</ref> R. J. Hakinson writes in the context of [[Hellenistic astrology]] that "the belief in the possibility of [astrology] was, at least some of the time, the result of careful reflection on the nature and structure of the universe."<ref>{{cite journal | last=Hankinson | first=R.J. | title=Stoicism, Science and Divination | journal=Apeiron | publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH | volume=21 | issue=2 | year=1988 | issn=2156-7093 | doi=10.1515/apeiron.1988.21.2.123 | page=| s2cid=170134327 }}</ref>

[[Nicholas Campion]], both an astrologer and academic historian of astrology, argues that [[Cultural astronomy|Indigenous astronomy]] is largely used as a synonym for astrology in academia, and that modern Indian and Western astrology are better understood as modes of cultural astronomy or [[ethnoastronomy]].<ref>{{cite book | last=Campion | first=Nicholas | title=Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy | chapter=Astrology as Cultural Astronomy | publisher=Springer New York | publication-place=New York, NY | date=2014-07-07 | pages=103–116 | doi=10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_16| isbn=978-1-4614-6140-1}}</ref> Roy Willis and [[Patrick Curry]] draw a distinction between propositional ''[[Wiktionary:ἐπιστήμη|episteme]]'' and metaphoric ''[[Wiktionary:μῆτις|metis]]'' in the ancient world, identifying astrology with the latter and noting that the central concern of astrology "is not knowledge (factual, let alone scientific) but {{em|wisdom}} (ethical, spiritual and pragmatic)".<ref>{{cite book | last1=Willis | first1=Roy | last2=Curry | first2=Patrick | title=Astrology, Science and Culture | publisher=Routledge | date=2020-05-19 | isbn=978-1-003-08472-3 | doi=10.4324/9781003084723| s2cid=242002348 }}</ref> Similarly, historian of science Justin Niermeier-Dohoney writes that astrology was "more than simply a science of prediction using the stars and comprised a vast body of beliefs, knowledge, and practices with the overarching theme of understanding the relationship between humanity and the rest of the cosmos through an interpretation of stellar, solar, lunar, and planetary movement." Scholars such as [[Assyriologist]] Matthew Rutz have begun using the term "astral knowledge" rather than astrology "to better describe a category of beliefs and practices much broader than the term 'astrology' can capture."<ref>{{cite journal | last=Niermeier-Dohoney | first=Justin | title=Sapiens Dominabitur Astris: A Diachronic Survey of a Ubiquitous Astrological Phrase | journal=Humanities | publisher=MDPI AG | volume=10 | issue=4 | date=2021-11-02 | issn=2076-0787 | doi=10.3390/h10040117 | page=117| doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | title=The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World | chapter=Astral Knowledge in an International Age: Transmission of the Cuneiform Tradition, ca. 1500–1000 B.C. | publisher=BRILL | date=2016-01-01 | doi=10.1163/9789004315631_004 | pages=18–54| isbn=978-90-04-31563-1 | last1=Rutz | first1=Matthew T. }}</ref>