Felipe Carvalho, Are there olfactory objects?

from: http://www.catpalaceusa.com/odor_eliminators/SY-25-01_odor_eliminator_mist_spray.html

Felipe Carvalho (Phd student with François Récanati). To come in September!

 Are there olfactory objects?

Abstract:
What do we directly smell? Odors suggest themselves as the most plausible candidates for the direct objects of olfactory experience, but it is far from clear what is the nature of these odors in olfaction; are they olfactory objects, represented in experience as such, or are they mere sensational features, detected by the olfactory system and modifying consciousness in a non-representational way?
Many philosophers argue for the latter view; although we may talk and refer to odors as if they were objects, this is to be seen either as a manner of speaking or a cognitive achievement, over and above the purely sensational features of olfaction. Two types of arguments are usually presented in favor of this view:

1. 1. Phenomenological arguments: from a phenomenological point of view, odors do not have distinguished spatial locations, but simply fill the air around us. The qualities we perceive through smell do not afford object differentiation, but are experienced as diffused in some undifferentiated space around us. Hence, we should rather talk of olfactory features rather than objects given to us in olfactory experience.
2. 2. Psychological-theoretical arguments: there are some constitutive conditions something must fulfill in order to count as a perceptual representation, and odors fail to satisfy these conditions. In particular, for something to be a representation as of a distal entity in the environment, over and above mere sensory registration, it is argued that perceptual constancies must be applied to it, which discount idiosyncratic perspectival sensory registration in order to focus on perspective-independent features of the distal object itself. But nothing of the sort seems to be found in olfaction, where there is no room for the notion of an “olfactory perspective”.

Despite these arguments, some philosophers have proposed perceptual-representational accounts of olfactory experience, but there is reason to be unsatisfied with these accounts. By giving too much weight to type-1 arguments, these philosophers construe representational contents as constituted by simple olfactory features like ‘fruity’ or ‘smoky’, attributed to an undifferentiated space “around the subject”. This proposal leaves no role for olfactory objects, as all smelled qualities, even if caused by different odors, would simply blend and be attributed to this undifferentiated space. In addition, these accounts do not seriously address type-2 arguments, and it is unclear what role representations are playing in the theory, over and above sensory registration of olfactory features.
In this talk I will move beyond these views and propose a perceptual account of olfaction, defining an empirically respectable and phenomenologically adequate notion of an olfactory object – an odor – that is represented in olfactory experience and play the role of a direct object of olfactory experience. This account has resources to deal with both types of arguments seen above in a satisfactory way.
The phenomenological argument that there cannot be olfactory objects because olfaction does not spatially distinguish them simply begs the question against a non-spatial modality like olfaction. Representations of olfactory objects should be posited not because odors are perceived as occupying distinguished spatial positions, but to account for how an odor is identified and perceived as the same despite enormous variations in stimuli. Type-1 arguments usually focus on experiences where we bracket external sources and come to attend to qualities of the odor itself, like smelling a particular red wine and becoming aware of features like ‘fruity’, ‘flowery’, and so on, which type-1 arguments take as adequate phenomenological descriptions of olfaction. No doubt this is something we can do, but for this experience to occur, it is required that the system has already identified and represented an olfactory object – a ‘red wine’ odor – that is available as a unit of olfactory attention, and that remains constant as we notice its different qualities. Hence, this sort of phenomenology is compatible with the existence of olfactory objects, and in fact seems to presuppose it.
In response to type-2 arguments, I will draw on current empirical research on olfaction and show that odors do fulfill conditions for perceptual representations. Type-2 arguments have mostly focused on odor detection at the olfactory bulb, a level that can be plausibly taken to sensorily register features rather than perceptually represent them, but nowadays psychologists look beyond the olfactory bulb to the piriform cortex as the locus of odor representation, where genuinely perceptual processes like figure-ground segregation and perceptual constancies occur.
These considerations give support the claim that olfaction may be seen as a proper perceptual modality. Through smell, the olfactory system identifies, classifies, and construes a perceptual representation of an olfactory object – an odor – that is perceived as the same across variations in stimuli, plays the role of a direct object of olfaction, and function as a unit of olfactory attention.