Illustrerad_Verldshistoria_band_I_Ill_158

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" (alternatively "How many angels can stand on the point of a pin?") is a '' reductio ad absurdum'' challenge to medieval

scholasticism Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical organic method of philosophical analysis predicated upon the Aristotelian 10 Categories. Christian scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translate ...

in general, and its angelology in particular, as represented by figures such as Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas. It is first recorded in the 17th century, in the context of Protestant apologetics. It also has been linked to the

fall of Constantinople The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city fell on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun o ...

, with the

imagery Imagery is visual symbolism, or figurative language that evokes a mental image or other kinds of sense impressions, especially in a literary work, but also in other activities such as psychotherapy. Forms There are five major types of sensory ima ...

of scholars debating while the Turks besieged the city. 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.

Origin

Thomas Aquinas's '' Summa Theologica'', written , includes discussion of several questions regarding angels such as, "Can several angels be in the same place?". However, the idea that such questions had a prominent place in medieval scholarship has been debated, and it has not been proven whether or not this particular question has been debated. One theory is that it is an early modern fabrication, 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 William Chillingworth (12 October 160230 January 1644) was a controversial English churchman. Early life He was born in Oxford, where his father served as mayor; William Laud was his godfather. In June 1618 he became a scholar of Trinity Coll ...

's ''Religion of Protestants'' (1637), 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 Helen S. Lang (February 19, 1947 – June 20, 2016) was an American philosophy professor and researcher, specializing in ancient Greek philosophy and science, medieval and Renaissance thought, and an expert on Aristotelian natural philosophy.

, author of ''Aristotle's Physics and its Medieval Varieties'' (1992), says (p. 284): 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 (minister), William Sclater (1575–1626). Peter Harrison
"Angels on Pinheads and Needles’ Points"
''Notes and Queries'', 63 (2016), 45–47. 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 pun on "needless point". A letter written to '' The Times'' in 1975 identified a close parallel in a 14th-century mystical text, the ''

Swester Katrei The ''Sister Catherine Treatise'' (german: Daz ist Swester Katrei Meister Eckehartes Tohter von Straezburc) is a work of Medieval Christian mysticism seen as representative of the Heresy of the Free Spirit of the thirteenth and fourteenth centur ...

''. However, the reference is to souls sitting on a needle: ''tusent selen siczen in dem himelrich uff einer nadel spicz'' — "in heaven a thousand souls can sit on the point of a needle." Dorothy L. Sayers argued that the question was "simply a debating exercise" and that the answer "usually adjudged correct" was stated as, "Angels are pure intelligences, not material, but limited, so that they have location in space, but not extension." Sayers compares the question to that of how many people's thoughts can be concentrated upon a particular pin at the same time. She concludes that infinitely many angels can be located on the head of a pin, since they do not occupy any space there:

The practical lesson to be drawn from the argument is not to use words like "there" in a loose, unscientific way, without specifying whether you mean "located there" or "occupying space there."

In Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese, the conundrum of useless scholarly debates is linked to a similar question of whether angels are sexless or have a sex. In Polish, instead of angels the question is about devils.

Notes

References

External links

* {{cite web , author=Cecil Adams , date=December 23, 1988 , title=Did medieval scholars argue over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin? , work= The Straight Dope, url=https://www.straightdope.com/21342158/did-medieval-scholars-argue-over-how-many-angels-could-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin Angelology Scholasticism Latin proverbs Philosophical phrases 17th-century neologisms Quotations from literature Quotations from religion Quotations from military Quotations from philosophy English phrases

Origin

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links