Project Details
Projekt
The invention of "nativity". On the systemising of birth astrology in late Ptolemaic Egypt
Applicant
Dr. Alfred Schmid
Subject Area
Ancient History
Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
History of Science
Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
History of Science
Term
from 2018 to 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 397601187
The working hypothesis of this project has been that so-called genethlialogy (that is, horoscope or birth astrology) was an important cornerstone in the historical creation of a reflective and individualized identity.But can horoscopic astrology be called an instrument of objectifying identity and thus be considered as evidence of people’s reflecting their own identity in antiquity? Asking this question implies a premodern culture of conscious identity, especially of an identity as an individual being.There are some difficulties with this kind of assumption.First: “identity” and also “individuality” are controversial concepts; I have to define what I mean with them. – Second, and more serious as an objection: individuality is a central topic in every theory of modernization. Individualization is a hallmark of modernity, and more so: of “western” modernity. To claim that antiquity, at least since the times of later Ptolemaic Egypt, has developed a rather exotic kind of systematic ‘psychology’ of individual identities, means to challenge the collective self-assertion connected with the epochality of being modern, and especially the claim to exclusiveness so essential for the current conceptions of modernity.Therefore, I needed definitions – now Philosopher Enno Rudolph argues in a still unpublished article (as he has before) that the terms “individuality” and “subjectivity” are mostly used as if they meant the same thing (“bedeutungsäquivalent”). – But these concepts are actually antagonistic. And this discrimination allows for suggesting a premodern ‘psychology’ of the individual, if you take as modern the emphasis on subjectivity and a psychology of subjectivity (as Freudian psychoanalysis seems to be). As a working hypothesis I suppose that horoscope astrology was indeed meant to rationalize individuality as an essential part of identity. In re-reading the astrological sources under that premise I am now working with concepts as “teleological” or “eventualist” psychology.The last part of the work will have to be devoted to the “milieu” of the historicized “invention” of this conception of identity. Is it possible to explain the apparently new need for a comparatively absolute identity in certain circles of late Hellenistic Egypt? And in which circles? Could the new theorization (which apparently soon became a global success) be a symptom of, or itself an answer to, a crisis of identity as of individual differentiation? Was there a plausible new need for an apparently fatal essentialism of identity?The extra time needed for getting a theoretical position of my own in the far reaching debate on the “subject”, its identity and individuality and its central role in modernity, was substantial. And so was the need of asking questions differently. This can easily justify an extension of the projects duration of one more year.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
Italy, Switzerland, USA
Co-Investigators
Professor Dr. Stefan Pfeiffer; Professor Dr. Joachim Friedrich Quack
