One rare exception is Theophrastus' A Treatise on Smells. It stands out because traditional philosophy has largely ignored olfaction. At best, the nose has appeared as a literary motif—more often a subject of amusement, wordplay, or aesthetic curiosity, appreciated only by certain artists and perfumers.
Traditional philosophy never dared consider smell as a path to truth, seemingly heeding the advice of St. Bernard, who warned that "odoratus impedit cogitationem" (the sense of smell hinders thought).
In the context of Arab linguistic and cultural traditions, the sense of smell has not been associated with knowledge but rather with pride and honour. The Arabic language, while recognising a moral or religious dimension to smell, does not attribute to it a cognitive function. In Arab customs, the nose is not a tool for understanding but a symbol of status and dignity.
This is evident in many Arabic references, where the words for 'nose' and 'pride' are often linked. As Al-Jahiz notes in The Book of Animals: "The nose is pride and the object of arrogance." European languages also exhibit a moral framing of smell, with numerous expressions associating olfaction with moral and social judgments.
Up close and personal
Some sociologists, such as G. Simmel, argue that social relations are not merely a matter of morality but that they are also fundamentally shaped by the senses. According to Simmel, sensory perception provides information beyond verbal communication.
It also plays a crucial role in shaping social interactions before words are even spoken. When two people meet, they can immediately experience feelings of attraction or repulsion, influencing their perception of one another and determining the nature of their subsequent interactions.
Though traditionally considered a secondary sense, Simmel grants smell a central role in The Sociology of the Senses. Unlike sight and hearing, which function at a distance, smell requires physical proximity. Odours cannot be easily separated from the people or things that emit them.
That is precisely why they provoke such instinctive reactions. Unlike visual or auditory perceptions, which can be subjected to abstract reflection, smells elicit immediate emotional responses. Simmel says sensitivity to odours "necessarily leads to discrimination and divergence" and constitutes one of the sensory foundations of social segregation in the modern world.
Social relationships
More than any other sense, smell underlies strategies of exclusion, clustering, and spatial separation, shaping how urban spaces are shared and influencing the social geography of cities. Smells can reinforce or create distinctions. In this way, the nose plays a crucial role in regulating social interactions.
It is the sense of dimensions and distances. We can 'stick our where it does not belong,' violating boundaries and straining relationships. It can suggest repulsion. The French have a saying: 'Je ne peux pas le sentir' (I can't smell him), meaning that they cannot bear to be in someone's company.
In French, the word 'sagacité' is a term that Arabic uses to refer to 'discernment'. It originates from the Latin 'sagax' (keen sense of smell). Intelligence, then, has links to olfaction. The perceptive individual—the labib—is someone who knows how to use their nose wisely.
The nose, therefore, is not merely a symbol of social and moral values; it also serves as a cognitive tool, helping thought overcome some of its limitations. Some of the great European writers—Baudelaire, Balzac, Proust—embraced the sense of smell as the ultimate medium of memory, the sense of remembrance par excellence.
This does not seem to extend to philosophy. Even when philosophers address the question of smell, they do not do so in a philosophical sense. Descartes, for instance, discussed it in Treatise on Man purely in physiological terms.
