Star Wars: Is Astrology Sociology?

By EMILY EAKIN

   Elizabeth Teissier is well known in France as the weekly horoscope columnist for a popular television
   guide, the author of a half-dozen books on astrology, and the astrologer to the French president François
Mitterrand.

But Ms. Teissier, 63, has recently found herself on the front page of French newspapers for something that
hundreds of people do every year: defending her dissertation.

A Ph.D. candidate in sociology, Ms. Teissier spent almost 10 years completing a 900- page thesis on astrology
and in April received a passing grade at the Sorbonne for her efforts.

On the personal Web site where she lists her accomplishments — which include predicting the attempted
assassination of Ronald Reagan, the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Berlin Wall — Ms. Teissier
has mounted a photograph of herself in scholar's cap and gown accompanied by the words: "She would like to
create a chair in astrology at the Sorbonne."

An account of Ms. Teissier's thesis defense ran on the front page of Le Monde, France's most important daily
newspaper. Suggesting that at least parts of the manuscript (cumbersomely titled "The Epistemological
Situation of Astrology in Relation to the Ambivalent Fascination/Rejection of Postmodern Societies") read
more like the justification of a true believer than a scholarly analysis by a skeptical scientist, the article set off
a storm of protest.

Over the last few weeks, fueled by fresh revelations — like Ms. Teissier's having referred to Max Weber, one
of sociology's founders, as a "pragmatic Taurus" — the debate has only gathered steam, pitting sociologists
who insist that the case concerns a thesis that fails to meet minimum academic standards against those who
argue that the real target isn't Ms. Teissier but a maverick strain of sociology that has failed to win
establishment approval.

By now, most of the major French newspapers have published opinion pieces. More than 400 sociologists
have signed a petition asking the president of the Sorbonne to make an independent evaluation of the case. And
the French Association of Scientific Information has assigned a group of scientists and social scientists to
review the thesis. They hope to release their report within the next two weeks. On the advice of her academic
advisers, Ms. Teissier has decided not to speak to reporters, at least until she receives her diploma later this
summer. But her supporters contend that her thesis, whatever its faults, is the casualty of a larger conflict
within the discipline over methodology. The real debate, they say, is between the followers of Émile Durkheim
and followers of Weber. Or, to put it another way, between positivists who rely on quantitative techniques and
objective measures when assessing social life and phenomenologists who attach greater importance to
subjective experience and emotion.

Writing in Le Figaro earlier this week, Judith Lazar, a lecturer in sociology at a University of Paris branch
campus, complained that Ms. Teissier was the victim of a witch hunt. Noting that most of her critics hadn't even
read the thesis, Ms. Lazar said: "Wouldn't it be braver to admit that what we're really after isn't the author of
this thesis (because what harm can this woman do to sociology?) but her adviser, Michel Maffesoli? Indeed, on
many occasions, this professor has expressed his differences with a discipline mired in old-fashioned
academicism and has not hesitated to defend original subjects in order to bring a little fresh air into a moribund
sociology."

There is no question that Mr. Maffesoli's scholarship falls at the extreme end of the phenomenological camp.
"What I do is a very Weberian sociology, which is not well represented in France because of the Durk heim
current that insists all must be explained by reason," said Mr. Maffesoli. His books include studies of
contemporary hedonism and New Age practices as well as a treatise on "ordinary knowledge," which he sees
as rooted in everyday life and encompassing the irrational, illogical and emotional aspects of human
experience.

In the view of many sociologists, this work lacks methodological rigor. Writing in Le Monde in April, for
example, Christian Baudelot and Roger Establet, sociologists at the École Normale Superieure at the
University of Aix-en-Provence, accused Mr. Maffesoli of promoting a social science that favors "lived
experience, groundless interpretation and off-the-cuff analysis" over reason and objectivity.

Despite these jabs, however, Mr. Maffesoli's critics insist that their objections to Ms. Teissier's thesis have
nothing to do with methodological disputes. "There is an opposition between Weber and Durkheim, but it has
nothing to do with Elizabeth Teissier," said Alain Touraine, a sociologist at the École des Hautes Études en
Sciences Sociales in Paris, pointing out that Weber stressed the need to back up all assertions with objective
evidence.

According to her critics, Ms. Teissier's thesis is simply not social science. "I've read the whole thing," said
Dominique Desjeux, a sociologist at the Sorbonne. "It's the testimony of somebody who is a well-known
astrologer and writes about her experiences. She cites letters from ordinary people as well as testimony from
Mitterrand. There is no sociology."

Bernard Lahire, a sociologist at the École Normale Supérieure de Lettres et Sciences Humaines in Lyon and
director of the group charged with reviewing the thesis, agreed. "There is no trace of empirical fact or research
method," he wrote via e-mail. "The idea hammered home from beginning to end of the document is that
astrology is the victim of domination. That science, which is renamed `official science' or `monolithic thought,'
oppresses astrology."

It is extremely unlikely that Ms. Teissier's degree will be revoked, he said. He added: "I personally consider
this defense a blow to our discipline and an insult to those who do their work properly. It's not an accident that
Elizabeth Teissier is using sociology to legitimate astrological discourse. Our discipline is all too often a
haven for people who are not rigorous and who are sometimes antirationalist."

In a letter published in Le Monde, Ms. Teissier reminded readers that a doctoral degree could not be obtained
on the basis of "notoriety and the production of 300 or more pages" alone. Like other students, she noted, she
has completed all the course and examination requirements for a sociology Ph.D. She signed the letter
"Astrally yours."