# Grief, Smell and the Olfactory Air of a Person  ## Metadata - Author: [[Becky Millar]] - Full Title: Grief, Smell and the Olfactory Air of a Person - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Document Tags: [[philosophy]] - Summary: The sense of smell plays an important role in helping people feel connected to deceased loved ones, despite philosophical views that limit its significance. This connection comes from what the author calls a person's "olfactory air," which reflects their essential nature rather than just the specific odors they produce. Understanding this can enhance our awareness of how smell influences our relationships with others, even beyond experiences of loss. - URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/papq.12443 ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > Research into portraiture and the expressive power of visual images has highlighted that it is possible for such phenomena to capture what has been referred to as the ‘air’ of a person – something important about the person's nature (Barthes, [1981](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/papq.12443#papq12443-bib-0002); Freeland, [2010](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/papq.12443#papq12443-bib-0016)). We argue that something analogous applies to the olfactory case, but rather than smell enabling an experience, or understanding, of another's mental life, it is especially apt for capturing one's status as a particular, environmentally situated, human animal. We refer to this as the ‘olfactory air’ of a person and take it to be an important albeit neglected aspect of the identity of a person. In this way, the sense of smell is especially good at putting you in touch with an important facet of *who someone is*. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jhjqjdgg22gpz6rj67vngvvf))