{"id":4957,"date":"2017-12-14T13:45:11","date_gmt":"2017-12-14T13:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/12\/14\/of-coulter-and-kant-screwed-pooches-and-milked-he-goats\/"},"modified":"2017-12-14T13:45:11","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T13:45:11","slug":"of-coulter-and-kant-screwed-pooches-and-milked-he-goats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/12\/14\/of-coulter-and-kant-screwed-pooches-and-milked-he-goats\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Coulter and Kant, Screwed Pooches, and Milked He Goats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ann Coulter:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Everyone who screwed the pooch on this one better realize fast: All that matters is immigration.<\/em> It's all that matters to the country, and it's all that matters for winning elections.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

She's right: read<\/a> what she has to say. <\/span><\/p>\n

What caught my eye, however, was the expression 'screw the pooch.'  I now send you to Slate<\/em> for an explanation<\/a> of its meaning, thereby proving that that site is good for something.<\/span><\/p>\n

The irrepressible Coulter also avails herself of the expression, 'milk a he-goat':<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

We'll have to watch helplessly as "establishment Republicans" fight "anti-establishment Republicans" over the right to milk a he-goat. Both sides will lose, and Democrats will sweep Congress and destroy our country.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now that's a very old expression; I first encountered it in Kant in a particularly delightful form at A 58 = B 83 of his Critique of Pure Reason<\/em>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

To know what questions may reasonably be asked is already a great and necessary proof of sagacity and insight. For if the question is absurd in itself and demands unnecessary answers, then, besides the embarrassment of the one who proposes it, it also has the disadvantage of misleading the incautious listener into absurd answers, and presenting the ridiculous sight (as the ancients said) of one man milking a he-goat while the other holds a sieve underneath.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The true Kant aficionado will of course know that Kant invoked this simile already in his pre-Critical period in his 1770 Latin Inaugural Dissertation, De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis<\/em>.  See, for the Latin, Daniel S. Robinson, "<\/span>Kant and Demonax–A Footnote to the History of Philosophy," <\/span><\/span>Philosophy and Phenomenological Research <\/cite><\/span>Vol. 10, No. 3 (Mar., 1950), pp. 374-379.<\/span><\/p>\n

Below, Professor Robinson misspells Norman Kemp Smith's name. In an age of literary irresponsibility we need more pedants like me. Or maybe not.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Kant<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ann Coulter: Everyone who screwed the pooch on this one better realize fast: All that matters is immigration. It's all that matters to the country, and it's all that matters for winning elections. She's right: read what she has to say.  What caught my eye, however, was the expression 'screw the pooch.'  I now send you to … Continue reading “Of Coulter and Kant, Screwed Pooches, and Milked He Goats”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[454,26,270,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-of-philosophy","category-immigration","category-kant","category-language-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}