How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Common card · No. 224314

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" is a metaphor for wasting time debating topics of no practical value, or on questions whose answers hold no intellectual consequence when more urgent concerns accumulate. Alternatively, it is phrased as "How many angels can stand on the point of a pin?" It is used this way in modern contexts; the phrase was originally used in a theological context by 17th-century Protestants to mock medieval scholastics such as Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas. Whether medieval scholastics really discussed the topic is, however, a matter of debate. The suggestion is possibly an early modern invention that was intended to discredit scholastic philosophy. The phrase has also been associated with the fall of Constantinople, with the assertion that scholars debated the topic while the Ottoman Empire besieged the city. In Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese, the conundrum of useless scholarly debates is linked to a similar question of whether or not angels...

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