Philosophy of Olfactory Perception

This book reconsiders the major current topics in the philosophy of perception using olfaction as the paradigm sense. The author reveals how many of the most basic concepts of philosophy of perception are based on peculiarities of visual perception not found in other modalities, and addresses how different the philosophy of perception would be if based on olfaction. The book addresses several aspects of olfaction, including perceptual qualities, percepts, olfaction and cognitive processes, and consciousness.

The first part of the book considers perception with respect to its ability to guide behaviors and to make information available to cognitive processes. The author continues by addressing the differences between conscious and non-conscious olfactory perception, and presents an argument for an important role of attention in conscious processes. The book concludes by discussing the function of conscious brain processes and their link to guiding behaviors in complex situations.

Andreas Keller obtained a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Würzburg, Germany, in 2002, and a PhD in Philosophy from the City University of New York, US, in 2015. Since 2003 he has worked at the Rockefeller University in New York City, studying human odor perception in the laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behaviors. He has published more than 20 papers on olfaction in such academic journals as Science and Nature. He has given over 20 talks on the topic across four continents, including presenting a workshop on 'Olfactory Consciousness' at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness in Brisbane, Australia, in 2014.