The represented objects of olfactory experience: Everyday objects and bare olfactory objects

This paper aims to identify the represented objects of olfactory experiences, i.e., what it is that olfactory experiences represent as being “smelly”. I argue that there are two types of olfactory experiences: attached smell experiences, in which smells are experienced as qualifying particular everyday objects, like roses, garbage bins, and cakes baking in the oven, and lone smell experiences, in which smells seem to take on a life of their own, as when an experienced smell seems to linger in a room or waft out the window. I argue that the represented objects of attached smell experiences are everyday objects, like roses, garbage bins, and baking cakes, while the represented objects of lone smell experiences are “bare olfactory objects”, which are objects that are only represented as having olfactory and spatial properties. I contrast this view of lone smell experiences with Batty’s (2011) view that olfactory experiences represent existentially quantified contents and the view that some olfactory experiences represent mere olfactory properties, which might be inspired by Mendelovici’s (2013, 2014) proprietal view of the contents of moods.