Theoretical Perspective on Smell is the first collection of scholarly articles to be devoted exclusively to philosophical research on olfaction. The essays, published here for the first time, bring together leading theorists working on smell in a format that allows for deep engagement with the emerging field, while also providing those new to the philosophy of smell with a resource to begin their journey. The volume’s 14 chapters are organized into four parts:
I. The Importance and Beauty of Smell
II. Smell in Time and Space
III. What We Perceive through Smell
IV. Smell and Other Senses
The collection solidifies the area as an important emerging branch of perceptual philosophy by presenting the cutting edge research being done by innovative early career researchers, as well as by those more senior and established within the field.
The essays, published here for the first time, bring together leading theorists working on smell in a format that allows for deep engagement with the emerging field, while also providing those new to the philosophy of smell with a resource to begin their journey.
1. Introduction
2. The Role of Smell in Consciousness
3. The
Metacognitive Gap: Why We Both Trust and Mistrust Our Sense of Smell
4.
Perfumes and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature
5. Aesthetics, Olfaction,
and Environment
6. Smell and the Space Between Us
7. The Temporal Structure
of Olfactory Experience
8. How Biology Perceives Chemistry: A Causal Analysis
of the Stimulus in Olfaction and Its Implications for Scientific and
Philosophical Theorizing
9. The Accuracy Conditions of Olfactory Perception
10. Maybe We Don't Smell Molecular Structure
11. Stuff and Nonsense: Against
Mizrahi on Olfaction
12. The Layering of Smell
13. From Odours to Flavours:
Perceptual Organisation in the Chemical Senses
14. Seeing and Hearing
Flavours
15. Smelling Gustatory Qualities
Andreas Keller is Guest Investigator at the Rockefeller University in New York, NY. He has published the results of his psychophysical research in olfaction in journals such as Science and Nature. He is the author of Philosophy of Olfactory Perception (2016).
Benjamin D. Young is Associate Professor in Philosophy and a member of the Graduate Faculty in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience and The Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Nevada, Reno. He conducts research at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and philosophy, with a particular emphasis on olfaction, and has published articles in journals such as Mind & Language, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, and Philosophical Studies. He co-edited, with Carolyn Dicey Jennings, the textbook, Mind, Cognition, and Neuroscience (2022).
