# Odors, objects and olfaction **Abstract:** Olfaction represents odors, if it represents anything at all. Does olfaction also represent ordinary objects like cheese, fish, and coffee-beans? Many think so. It is argued here that such a view is in error. Instead, we should affirm an austere account of the intentional objects of olfaction: olfactory experience is about odors, not objects. Visuocentric thinking about olfaction has tempted some philosophers to say otherwise. I. Introduction When philosophers theorise about perception in general, they tend to focus on vision in particular. This trend is beginning to shift. It is increasingly recognised that we will have a skewed account of perception if we try to shoehorn all of our senses into the visual mold. One motivation for rejecting such visuocentric thinking about perception is the fact of widespread interactions between the senses. Experimental evidence of multimodal interactions and crossmodal links indicates that there may be no purely visual experiences to begin with.i Another motivation for rejecting visuocentric thinking is that there are philosophical puzzles which are unique to our non-visual senses. For instance, we hear sounds to have pitches, timbres, and degrees of loudness. Do we also hear sounds to be located in distance and direction? What are sounds: properties, individuals (i.e. waves), or events? And what of touch? The properties we tactually experience include spatial properties, texture properties, and weight properties. Are any of these definitiv **Authors:** [[Cavedon]]