The question of whether we can perceive absences, in addition to 'positives', has received recent
attention in the literature on the nature of vision and audition. The aim is to demonstrate that
there can be objectless forms of perceptual consciousness; specifically, to show that such
episodes can be distinguished from those in which ...
The question of whether we can perceive absences, in addition to 'positives', has received recent
attention in the literature on the nature of vision and audition. The aim is to demonstrate that
there can be objectless forms of perceptual consciousness; specifically, to show that such
episodes can be distinguished from those in which there is merely no perception at all. The
current paper explores this question for the domain of olfaction, and argues that there can be
experiences of the absence of odours, in addition to positive smell perception. Doing so sheds
light upon the structure and spatial content of olfaction.