A well -felt philosophy

See also, on the same subject:

– The nose of the philosopher, by Ariel Suhamy, 24/09/2010.

Round table around Chantal Jaquet, author of the Smell philosophywith Pierre-François Moreau and Francis Wolff (video).

This Smell philosophy has everything to get us away (sic !). After all, a work that declares in the smell of holiness the nose and smell, whether animal or human, natural or cultural, really has something to sharpen our curiosity and excite our flair. The reader also feels kindly reduced to the state of truffle (that of the dog’s nose, I hear !), Looking for the good tracks of knowledge, discovery and reflection.

The fact is that we are not disappointed, because Chantal Jaquet is first of all a large and just reader, who knows how to put herself at the service and her authors, and her problem: how to found a true philosophy of smell, by beyond the idealist prejudices that have long prevented this question from facing ? The book travels the vast shop of approaches, which range from outcrop to true analysis (Proust, Lucrèce, for example) – I say “ shop “, Because it is still a country of theoretical reason, as Kant says, but it would be necessary to dream of a … panorama ! As with the iceberg of the image of the unconscious, despite the “ discharge »Odorate by idealism, the texts are abundant: myths, tales, stories, reveries, testimonies, analyzes and theories, with regard to fragrances and perfumes, remirals” natural “And artifices of chemistry …

The inventory

Chantal Jaquet’s work is first of all an extremely precious file for those who want to try the adventure. There is certainly a school side, in the common sense of the term, that is to say elementary And applied, completely able to take the ignorant (that we are all) “ as by hand », And to show them around and sniff, by speech interposed, the vast panoply of odoriferous qualities (primary qualities ? seconds ?), And especially the remarkable variety of human judgments (too human, even regressive, often) on this. The book may sometimes constitute (despite himself ?) A first-rate nonsense-I think of the passages on contemporary art (p. 295-310), and of the very captivating chapter entitled “ Both visually », Where are exposed in a salibe way a few edifying variations in hatred (against black, homosexual, whore, German etc.). There is a real catalog of received ideas, but also an exegesis of good ideas, which allows us to initiate the question. The chapters devoted to Condillac, Lucrèce, Proust and Huysmans are very instructive.

The philosophical issue: the Foundation

Chantal Jaquet’s project is to pose the prolegomena of a philosophy of smell (nose as an organ of smell). The work therefore logically starts with its critical, destructive – the introduction and the first part, “ Olfactory sensitivity », Perform this task, insisting on epistemological obstacles (of the order of immediate representations, vocabulary, of a priori) and on the ascetic ideal of philosophers, which seriously slander the smell, even curse and demonize it, which prevents “facing” innocently », If we dare to say, the question. Where we see that despite promising approaches (Aristotle, for example), the field is not really cleared. It is not surprising, then, if the work of the philosopher should go through literature: the real positive begins in the second part (“ Olfactory aesthetics »), With Balzac (The lilk in the valley) and, of course, Proust ; He continues with painting (Gauguin in particular) and even in a more unprecedented way with music – Debussy (Pelléas and Mélisande) – or the sculpture (Zumbo and the sculpture that stins (!) And Rodin) or architecture. The reference to the Esseintes de Huysmans will strengthen the idea of ​​an essential task: the literacy Olfactive experience also involves listening to more lucid civilizations than the West on this point (Japan, p. 275-294). The author’s ambition is to exhibit, in the third part (“ Olfactory philosophies ) Some real, literary and philosophical models (Plato, against all odds, but more surely Bacon, some presocratics – Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles -, and Lucrèce, Condillac and Nietzsche).

A real problem, exemplary of the genre …

The work is therefore nourishing and generous. Where our nose begins to twist, it is on certain strangeness of distribution of the material: the chapter “ The olfactory silence of Parmenides and Anaxagore »Could have been placed at the start of the work, as an illustration of theoretical helplessness to take smell seriously. The chapter on the genetic thought of Condillac would also have gained to be the hub of the work, due to the inductive value of its empiricism.

There is also a strange thematic confusion (a telescoping, even) between the question of sensitivity (the smell proper) and the nasal form (it made me think of the o’hara and the o’timmins, in Lucky Lucke) as a physiological and racial revealer: why not devote a chapter to this question of the phenomenal materiality of the nose, to distinguish it from its “ interiority »Physiological and Already psychic, his true sensitivity and revealing ? The registers are not the same: the news of Gogol, Nosedoes not relate to smell, but to the discriminating sign of a fantasy social hierarchy in Russia of the time (the nose of the rich points up, that of the poor down) – the same remark for the Image of Cleopatra’s nose (p. 351) at Pascal: the attractive nose is not the flair. The painful question of “ Jewish nose (P. 89 and following) could thus have been dealt with outside the question of the “ Jewish sink ».

In fact, this point indicates a difficulty that the author does not raise enough, stopping halfway. If the truth of a Smell philosophy is in a Smellish aestheticsas the 2 say^e and 3^e Parties, it is to the question: “ Under what conditions is an aesthetic of smell possible ? »That must be answered (Kantian question, therefore). Better (or worse, it depends on the points of view !): What is the cost of an aesthetic of smell ? (Nietzschean question, therefore). The challenge is daring, the complex problem, the world of references indicates it enough. The author, too busy setting his account to ascetic idealism, does not take him head on. Because an aesthetic of smell does not only require reconciliation with smell-if not Brillat-Savarin and Chanel would be our masters to think ! -. This goes without saying, that is part of the rules of politeness, as Bachelard said that the Cartesian rules of the method were the rules of politeness of the understanding, nothing more – the final chapter on Nietzsche remains, in our opinion, prisoner of this stain. Above all, it is necessary Aesthetic obligesa real overhaul of the discourse of aesthetics, and not only taking into account its literary, which only applies to its phenomenology. It is the concept that prevails, as with Spinoza and Hegel (without forgetting Diderot, Nietzsche, Bachelard or Dagognet etc.). That the strong authors on the issue are empiricists (Aristotle, Lucrèce, Condillac), and especially sensualists and phenomenists (Proust, Nietzsche, Valéry) shows that the key to this aesthetic is the resumption of experience as internalization (the Factory of identity, of an invariant and this despite the variability, the relativity, the volatility of the relationship to the thing) and as an exteriorization (test of strangeness, alienation – pages on rape, the ‘intrusion, the invasion by the smell are very suggestive, and it would be necessary to give all its weight ontological to the irreversible dimension of the event…). It is not a coincidence that classic aesthetics have the object of distance (non-use), eye and hearing, and not those of destruction (that smell destroys, as the touch and taste, this is a challenge that Kant cannot take up (despite the p. 227 et seq.) Since precisely his philosophy is not An aesthetic, but a transcendental philosophy of judgment).

But aesthetics are not just a theory of experience, it is also logos, rational discourse (the pages on words and the names of the smell are amazing). As Proust says, “ We feel in a world, we think, we name in another, we can between the two establish a concordance but not fill the interval “(Guermantes’ side). Or: how to reach the concept, especially if it is of visual and auditory essence ? The problem is that of the link between sensitive infra and logos, that of metaphor, or rather analogy. Hume and Nietzsche (that of Truth and lie in the extra-moral sense1873) are precious, certainly, and Proust or Valéry too, but Plato (that of reminiscence more than that of pure pleasure, in our sense !) And Hegel felt this: there is a value Dynamic, speculative and dialectical of the sensitive (that the “ Platonism Alas, alas, into contemplation). This truth applies to smell, it lies in the truth of concepts which must now be patiently and finely developed: the nuance, the threshold, the infinitesimal of the difference – quid of the Leibnizian principle of indistinguishable ? -, The transition to quality (Hegel, yes, but also the tenuous link of taste to disgust, with Sade, Stendhal – the crystallization -, Baudelaire – the exhale of carrion – or Freud, or Spinoza – the infinite of desire …), And essence, yes, essence !… If the perfumes relate to essential oils and substances …

At this price, therefore, an aesthetic of smell would perform this beautiful Smell philosophyso closed in its controversial and aperitif part in its utopian part, despite the dead ends of industry or denial, by contemporary art (Duchamp, p. 295), of this question so decisive of the analogy (the concordance to challenge the interval), that is to say the leap Proustien …

See also, on the same subject:

– The philosopher’s nose, video maintenance, 09/24/2010.

Chantal Jaquet, author of the Smell philosophyanswers questions from Pierre-François Moreau and Francis Wolff at the University of Paris-I Sorbonne. What is an aesthetic of smell ? Why is philosophy anosmic, and what would it benefit from opening to the nostrils ? (See the video)