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"How many angels can
dance on the head of a pin?" (alternatively "How many angels can
stand on the point of a pin?"[1])
is a reductio ad absurdum challenge to
medieval scholasticism in general, and its angelology in
particular, as represented by figures such as Duns
Scotus and Thomas Aquinas.[2][3] It
is first recorded in the 17th century, in the context of Protestant apologetics.
It also has been linked to the fall of Constantinople, with the imagery of
scholars debating while the Turks besieged the city.[4][5]
In modern usage, the term has
lost its theological context and is used as a metaphor for
wasting time debating topics of no practical value, or questions whose answers
hold no intellectual consequence, while more urgent concerns accumulate.[1][4]
Contents
Origin[edit]
Thomas
Aquinas's Summa Theologica, written c. 1270, includes
discussion of several questions regarding angels such as, "Can several
angels be in the same place?"[2] However
the idea that such questions had a prominent place in medieval scholarship has
been debated, and it has not been proved that this particular question was ever
disputed.[6] One
theory is that it is an early
modern fabrication,[a] used
to discredit scholastic philosophy at a time when it still played a significant
role in university education. James Franklin has raised the
scholarly issue, and mentions that there is a 17th-century reference in William Chillingworth's Religion of
Protestants (1637),[7] where
he accuses unnamed scholastics of debating "whether a Million of Angels
may not fit upon a Needle's point?" This is earlier than a reference in
the 1678 The True Intellectual System Of The Universe by Ralph
Cudworth. Helen S. Lang, author of Aristotle's
Physics and its Medieval Varieties (1992), says (p. 284):
The question of how many
angels can dance on the point of a needle,
or the head of a pin, is often attributed to 'late medieval writers'... In
point of fact, the question has never been found in this form…
Peter Harrison (2016) has suggested
that the first reference to angels dancing on a needle's point occurs in an
expository work by the English divine, William
Sclater (1575-1626). In An exposition with notes upon the first
Epistle to the Thessalonians (1619), Sclater claimed that scholastic philosophers
occupied themselves with such pointless questions as whether angels "did
occupie a place; and so, whether many might be in one place at one time; and
how many might sit on a Needles point; and six hundred such like needlesse
points." Harrison proposes that the reason an English writer first
introduced the "needle’s point" into a critique of medieval
angelology is that it makes for a clever pun on "needless point".[8]
A letter written to The Times in
1975[9] identified
a close parallel in a 14th-century mystical text,
the Swester Katrei:
[D]octors declare that in
heaven a thousand angels can stand on the point of a needle. Now rede me
the meaning of this.
Other possibilities are that
it is a surviving parody or self-parody, or a training topic in debating.
In Italian,[10] Spanish
and Portuguese, the conundrum of useless scholarly debates is linked to a similar
question of whether angels are sexless or have a
sex.[5]
Modern use[edit]
Comparing medieval
superstition and modern science, George Bernard Shaw wrote in the
introduction to the play Saint
Joan that "The medieval doctors of divinity who did not pretend
to settle how many angels could dance on the point of a needle cut a very poor
figure as far as romantic credulity is concerned beside the modern physicists
who have settled to the billionth of a millimetre every movement and position
in the dance of the electrons."[11]
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
^ More precisely, in play in the 17th century, and
discussed at various levels by the Cambridge Platonists Ralph
Cudworth and Henry More, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
References[edit]
^ Jump
up to:a b Hirsch,
E. D. Jr.; Kett, Joseph F.; Trefil, James, eds. (2002). The
New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Third ed.). Houghton Mifflin Co.
Archived from the
original on 3 July 2003.
^ Jump
up to:a b Summa, New advent.
^ Kennedy, D. J., "Thomism", in
the Catholic Encyclopedia)
^ Jump
up to:a b "How
many angels can dance on the head of a pin?". Today's Zaman. Archived
from the
original on 13 December 2014.
^ Jump
up to:a b Ramírez,
José A. (1975). Las
Andanzas Del Diablo: Confidencias de un Abogado Ingenuo. Editorial Planeta.
p. 58. ISBN 9788432053375.
^ Van
Asselt, Willem J (2011). Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism.
p. 65.
^ Franklin 1993 p. 127.
^ Peter Harrison, "Angels
on Pinheads and Needles’ Points", Notes and Queries, 63 (2016),
45-47.
^ Sylla, E. D. (2005). "Swester Katrei and
Gregory of Rimini: Angels, God, and Mathematics in the Fourteenth
Century". In Koetsier, S.; Bergmans (eds.). Mathematics
and the Divine: A Historical Study. Amsterdam: Elsevier. p. 251. ISBN 0444503285. Retrieved 7
December2017.
^ "Angelo
- Dizionario dei modi di dire - Corriere.it". dizionari.corriere.it (in
Italian). Retrieved 13 July 2017.
^ "Saint Joan – A
Chronicle Play in Six Scenes and an Epilogue". Retrieved 22 July 2015.
Further reading[edit]
Franklin, J., "Heads of
Pins" in: Australian Mathematical Society Gazette, vol. 20,
n. 4, 1993.
Harrison, Peter. "Angels
on Pinheads and Needles’ Points", Notes and Queries, 63 (2016),
45-47.
Howard, Philip (1983), Words
Fail Me, summary of correspondence in The Times on
the matter
Kennedy, D. J., "Thomism", in
the Catholic Encyclopedia
Koetsier, T. & Bergmans,
L. (eds.), Mathematics and the Divine: a historical study, Ch. 14 by Edith
Sylla (review)
External links[edit]
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Look up angels dancing on the
head of a pin in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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"Did medieval
scholars argue over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin?" –
article at The Straight Dope
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