Reimagining our relationship with reality through the sense of smell.

I’m a PhD researcher at the University of Dundee, working at the intersection of olfaction, orientation, and ontology. My project, titled Smelling Metaphysical Lies, takes its cue from Nietzsche’s claim to have smelled the lies of Platonism. It proposes that reversing the sensory hierarchy, and placing smell before sight, provokes a radical metaphysical shift. Smell uniquely orients us to living processes, it resists abstraction and categorisation, and is inherently affective and evaluative.

My project challenges the dominance of visual metaphysics to develop a comprehensive account of the orientational value of olfaction in our everyday lives, in philosophy, and across other disciplines, including the life sciences and artificial intelligence.