What is the philosophical ground of astrology?

Astrology's worldview and beliefs are informed by, and, in many ways congruent with, vitalism, idealism, holism, emanationism and phenomenology.

Vitalism received its initial expression by Aristotle but came to maturation under the philosophers Henri Bergson and Hans Driesch. Vitalism purports that the explanation of life cannot be explained by material factors alone nor can they be reduced simply to the workings of physico-chemical processes. Rather, a force that cannot be captured in strictly mechanistic terms is responsible for the movement of life in biological beings. Moreover, this force is thought to be purposive, creative, and intelligent.

Idealism has found continual renewal within both Eastern and Western thought throughout the ages. Although there are important differences between schools of idealism, the common denominator is the belief that mind and ideas are foundational and primary to objects and external phenomena. Many forms of idealism suggest that what appears fragmentary, contrary, and contradictory in the external world are ultimately facets of an absolute mind, godhead, or spirit.

Emanationism takes as a central tenet that a supreme or primal reality-called variously God, Spirit, the One, or the Absolute-unfolds itself into sensate, material reality through a series of progressive steps or successive enfoldments. Receiving its most explicit treatment in Plotinus's philosophy and the Kabbalah, emanationism suggests that there is a "pull" or "telos" that tugs at individuals creating a yearning and desire to return to the origin source which is greater, higher, and more abundant in every conceivable value than life on earth.

Holism stresses the underlying unity of the universe amid the superficial, observable diversity; "yin" takes precedence and supercedes "yang." Moreover, in holism, "wholes," or more appropriately "holons," are more than the sum of their constituent parts, for instance, whole organisms are more than simply the addition of parts such as DNA and organs. Holism also views the complexity and contradictions of the universe as a play of opposites and sees the Enlightenment project of coming to a unified, ultimate theory through discursive reason as ultimately impossible and bankrupt.

Phenomenology is a methodology as much as it is its own school of thought. The purpose of phenomenology is to encounter objects of consciousness with a minimum of presuppositions and biases from conditioned knowledge, value systems, and interpretation of any kind so that a direct experience and essence of a thing-in-self can be ascertained. In a sense, phenomenology is a radical inquiry and introspection into consciousness itself.

Romanticism, in conscious reaction to the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, emphasized subjectivity over objectivity, the irrational over the rational, the imaginative or the analytical, the transcendental over the worldly and material.