Theoretical Perspectives on Smell

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).

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