What is interoception? A Case Study on Smell and Metabolism

Interoception has received growing attention in the past few decades. Yet, its conceptual foundations remain underexplored. This paper aims to expose conceptual limitations in dominant accounts of interoception, which are typically either viscerocentric or internalist. I argue that current philosophical definitions of interoception fail to accommodate the bidirectional feedback loop between olfaction and metabolic regulation: olfactory cues can influence metabolic processes, and metabolism can recalibrate olfactory perception from its earliest stages. Towards this goal, I open three lines of reflection. First, interoception should not be understood as purely descriptive; it involves a pre-scriptive, regulation-oriented dimension. Second, its functional scope extends beyond homeostasis to encompass allostasis, integrating environmental cues into predictive bodily control. Third, a sharp divide between interoception and exteroception is questionable and warrants further assessment, given that sensory processes, including olfactory ones, regulate and are regulated by thebody’s internal milieu. These considerations call for revising existing models to better capture interoception’s integration into broader architectures of bodily regulation.