Princeton University
Department of Philosophy
PhD
Missoula, Montana, United States of America
  •  4188
    Cultural appropriation and the intimacy of groups
    Philosophical Studies 176 (4): 981-1002. 2019.
    What could ground normative restrictions concerning cultural appropriation which are not grounded by independent considerations such as property rights or harm? We propose that such restrictions can be grounded by considerations of intimacy. Consider the familiar phenomenon of interpersonal intimacy. Certain aspects of personal life and interpersonal relationships are afforded various protections in virtue of being intimate. We argue that an analogous phenomenon exists at the level of large grou…Read more
  •  686
    In Nicomachean Ethics X.5, Aristotle gives a series of arguments for the claim that pleasures differ from one another in kind in accordance with the differences in kind among the activities they arise in connection with. I develop an interpretation of these arguments based on an interpretation of his theory of pleasure (which I have defended elsewhere) according to which pleasure is the perfection of perfect activity. In the course of developing this interpretation, I reconstruct Aristotle’s …Read more
  •  336
    Most commentators think that Plato's account of the varieties of false pleasure is disjointed and that various types of false pleasure he identifies are false in different ways. It really doesn't look that way to me: I think that the discussion is unified, and that Plato starts with less difficult cases to build up to a point about more important but less clear cases. In this paper, I do my best to show how this might work. I don't think I will ever work on this again: the experience of writing …Read more
  •  261
    Pleasure as Perfection: Nicomachean Ethics X.4-5
    Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 41 257-287. 2011.
    I argue that Aristotle took pleasure to be a certain aspect of perfect activities of awareness, namely, their very perfection. I also argue that this reading facilitates an attractive interpretation of his view that pleasures differ in kind along with the activities they arise in connection with.
  •  187
    Art and painful emotion
    Philosophy Compass 14 (1). 2018.
    This essay updates Aaron Smuts', 2009 Philosophy Compass piece, “Art and Negative Affect” in light of recent work on the topic. The “paradox of painful art” is the general problem of how it is possible to enjoy or value experiences of art that involve painful emotions. It encompasses both the paradox of tragedy and the paradox of horror. Section 2 lays out a taxonomy of solutions to the paradox of painful art and argues that we should opt for a pluralistic approach rather than seeking a unified …Read more
  •  136
    Horror and Hedonic Ambivalence
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 70 (2): 203-212. 2012.
    I argue that a solution to the paradox of horror should accommodate the possibility of enjoying an aesthetic experience partly in virtue of its being painful. This possibility is typically thought to be ruled out by the very nature of pleasure and pain. I argue that this is not so for adverbial accounts of pleasure. Using Aristotle's theory of pleasure as an example of an adverbial account, I show that it is possible for to enjoy an aesthetic experience partly in virtue of its being painful.
  •  91
    On Culinary Authenticity
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 77 (2): 157-167. 2019.
    Recent discussions of culinary authenticity have focused on the problematic sociopolitical implications of Euro‐Americans seeking authenticity in food perceived as ethnic. This article seeks to rehabilitate the concept of culinary authenticity. First, the author relates the issue of culinary authenticity to other philosophical debates concerning authenticity, arguing that the concept of authenticity is value‐neutral. Second, a general theory of culinary authenticity making use of the theoretical…Read more
  •  31
    Why Culinary Authenticity Matters
    The Philosophers' Magazine 85 38-44. 2019.
  •  29
    Combining philosophy of art with film criticism, Strohl flips conventional notions of good and bad on their heads and makes the case that the ultimate value of a work of art lies in what it can add to our lives. By this measure, some of the worst movies ever made are also among the best.