Description
The nature of olfaction; its importance for understanding perennial issues of philosophy of mind, perception, and consciousness; and its implications for cognitive neuroscience.
What are smells? Despite the best efforts of philosophy and the chemosciences, the question remains vexing—but no more perplexing than the historical lapse of the past centuries to seriously consider a sense that has a key place in philosophy of mind and perception. Stinking Philosophy! is Benjamin Young’s answer to this critical lapse. Drawing together more than a decade's research on olfactory philosophy, the book offers a clear, comprehensive look at the nature of odors—how we perceive smells, how we cognitively represent odors, how we communicate about them as categories, and what they can tell us about consciousness.
In Stinking Philosophy! Young presents a methodology for addressing the philosophical and conceptual issues raised by the sense of smell. T