Kepler, a Astrologia e a Natureza dos Aspectos: Exemplo Textual

 
Boner, P. J., 2013, Kepler's Cosmological Synthesis: Astrology, Mechanism and the Soul, 159-60.

Kepler described the aspects and consonances as “different peoples, as it were,” who came from “the same country of Geometry.” Essentially, they originated from the same set of principles in different ways. In the case of the consonances, the section of the circumference of a circle corresponding to the side of an inscribed polygon was extended in a straight line and compared in length with the remaining part of the circumference. Kepler compared this departure from the circle to the foundation of a new colony, where the consonances, “living by their own laws,” had established a certain distance from their circular origins. The aspects, on the other hand, were thought to rely completely on the circle for their determination. While the length of a line measured by the side of an inscribed polygon lay at the heart of every consonance, no such feature could be found in the geometrical formulation of an aspect. An aspect was determined entirely by the inscription of congruent and constructible polygons in a circle. “The aspects, remaining within their own country, the circle,” Kepler wrote, “make use of no other laws than those which the roundness of the circle prescribes to them.” These figures had been found among the regular plane figures, Kepler wrote, and were “congruent and inscribed in a circle.”

Despite their different origins, the aspects and consonances relied similarly on the soul for their recognition. Kepler defined an aspect as “a thing of reason” whose influence could not be conveyed immediately, “as if rain and similar things came down from the heavens themselves,” but objectively by an animate faculty. “If there were no soul in the earth,” Kepler wrote, the sun, moon, and planets would have no astrological influence, “either on their own or through any suitable aspect.” And while the harmonies he identified among the motions of those celestial bodies were not audible, they were thought to resonate with a higher faculty of the soul. In fact, the celestial harmonies involved some of the same relations the soul made instinctually when it enjoyed a musical melody. Kepler claimed that the consonances were not simply created by the fluctuation of the air but consisted more fundamentally in harmonic proportions produced by the human voice as well as the motions of the planets. For the perception of these proportions, Kepler referred to the ability of the soul to identify and appreciate their archetypal essence. In the same way the motions of the planets expressed the archetypal principles of the consonances, Kepler argued, the configuration of the heavens exemplified similar principles that found their resonance in the soul of the earth. “It suffices that there is a soul,” Kepler wrote, “which perceives those proportions when they exist and is stirred up by them.”

Boner, P. J., 2013, Kepler's Cosmological Synthesis: Astrology, Mechanism and the Soul. Leiden/ Boston: Brill.

Kleper, a Astrologia e os seus 1.170 Horóscopos

 

Rublack, U., 2015, The Astronomer & the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother,135.

In the late sixteenth century, people usually explained personalities through astrology. Astrology formed a routine part of elite education, and was part of many universities’ curricula. Kepler, too, had learnt to cast horoscopes and predict the weather in Tübingen as part of studying mathematics, which in turn was integral to studying theology and the arts. During his career, he went on to compile a vast collection of more than 1.170 horoscopes for over 850 individuals. Although commissions from clients near and far provided him with welcome additional income, Kepler also collected horoscopes and data from a broad range of other practitioners in order to study them. When news reached him of an illness or the death of a particular person, he updated his records in order to verify his predictions. Horoscopes of famous, or ordinary, ill-fated people, such as a woman executed in Tübingen for infanticide, were closely scrutinized for patterns and causes. This immersed him in contemplating many different biographies. It made him curious about others. Anything but a distant academic dissociated from ordinary lives, he mined this information as a tool of empirical observation, so as to understand human nature through the movements of the stars.

Rublack, U., 2015, The Astronomer & the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother. Oxford/ Nova Iorque: Oxford University Press.

Kepler: Astronomia e Astrologia, uma Harmonia Geométrica

Boner, Patrick J., Kepler's Cosmological Synthesis: Astrology, Mechanism and the Soul, 42 e 42 n.20.

Yet despite the many differences Kepler identified between astrology and astronomy, he claimed the two shared in geometry the same metaphysical foundations. As a consequence, Kepler applied geometrical principles to the two areas by way of analogy. He also extended these principles to the study of music. In fact, Kepler argued that all material phenomena, from the motions of the planets to the effects of the heavens on the weather to the production of particular melodies, derived from the same singular set of geometrical principles. Seen in this way, astrology, astronomy, and music shared the same archetypal origins. Kepler even described astrology as “a silent music” whose appreciation was made possible by a soul that could “dance to the tune of the aspects.” As Kepler made clear, the universal nature of geometrical principles accounted for the underlying consistency of the cosmos, where the idea of harmony encompassed far more meaning than our modern understanding. On the occasion of accepting three new aspects as influential, Kepler wrote to Herwart in 1599 on his discovery of an “absolute analogy” between astrology, astronomy, and musical theory:

. . . The analogy [analogia] with music and astronomy is absolute. I show that the analogy must necessarily be seen in this way, since the origins of all things are derived from geometry. Nature confirms these principles in the creation of a single species and employs these principles in everything that is capable of them. This occurs in music, the motions of the planets, the operation of the planets [on earth], the measure of musical notes according to time, the dances of men, and the composition of songs. For although these things are the discoveries of men, nevertheless man is the image of the creator.

n.20: JKGW, 14, no. 130, 640–651: “. . . perfecta sit analogia musices et astronomiae. Quam analogiam necessariò spectandam hoc medio demonstro, quia omnium rerum origines ex eometria petitae sunt, et quas natura rationes probat in creatione unius generis rerum easdem adhibet in omnibus omninò rebus, quae earum sunt capaces. Propterea in musica, in motibus planetarum, in operatione planetarum, in dimensione notarum musicalium causâ temporis, in hominum saltationibus, in ratione carminum. Nam etsi sunt haec hominum inventa, tamen homo imago conditoris est.”

Fonte:

Boner, P. J., 2013, Kepler's Cosmological Synthesis: Astrology, Mechanism and the Soul.

Leiden/ Boston: Brill.