The Senses of Smell: Scents, Ordors and Aromatic Spaces

Rivista di Estetica n.s. N. 78, 2021, anno LXI

Nicola Perullo, Elena Mancioppi (edited by)

https://journals.openedition.org/estetica/8835

Although recent years have seen a growing philosophical interest in smell, aesthetic research on it still covers a relatively small domain, confined to a niche. The present issue deals with smell as a very serious philosophical issue, in some cases even as a vector of a whole philosophical project. The papers here collected show how ol[1]faction, odors, fragrances and, more in general, the aerial dimension of being and knowing cover a huge range of problems that even exceeds the aesthetic domain in its conventional sense. This is why readers will not find papers written exclusively by professional philosophers, but also by curators, artists, perfumers and semiologists. The relationship between smell, cognition and aesthetic experience, the use of odors in the arts and their symbolic meanings, and the socio-ontological and socio-aesthetic engagement through the ethical and political implications of smell are some of the topics the essays tackle through different approaches and perspectives.

Summary of contents

Nicola Perullo, Introduction

Larry Shiner, Opening the way for an olfactory aesthetics: Smell’s cognitive powers

Giulia Martina, Objective smells and partial perspectives

Jenny Ponzo, The perfume and the spirit: From religion to perfumery

Nicola Perullo, Diletta Tonatto, Re-humanizing smell: A conversation

Sue Spaid, Value disgust: Appreciating stench’s role in attention, retention and deception

Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Ontological anosmia

Wolfgang Georgsdorf, Osmodrama – Theatre for the nose

Elena Mancioppi, Towards a sociopolitical aesthetics of smell

Varia

Antonio Dall’Igna, Lettura e non-lettura secondo Simone Weil