THE SMELL OF LAW DECISIONS: OLFACTION IN BRAZILIAN SUPERIOR JUSTICE COURT

Abstract

This paper aims to study the sense of smell and its importance to society, focusing on legal interpretations as a case to demonstrate the irritations between different social systems (science and law, mainly). Its general hypothesis is that some modern conceptions, even though dressed in all scientific and methodic appearance through centuries, are preconceptions biased by social interests; and these preconceptions based several paradigms of knowledge through times, being that Law reasoning in jurisprudence about smell has absorbed this socially constructed conceptions that are being denied by the most actual science. Its specific objectives are: i) to show what is the olfaction in human brain and psyche, according to the most current scientific discoveries; ii) to demonstrate that olfaction not only has a historical and cultural meaning, but also, that Modernity distorted its meaning in a non scientific way; iii) to study the jurisprudence of a specific important Court (Brazilian Superior Justice Court, or Superior Tribunal de Justiça , STJ, originally), in order to demonstrate that this modern preconceptions still take part on the decisional process nowadays. The research has used mainly three research methods: i) phenomenological-hermeneutical research; ii) historical-evolutive and anthropological research; iii) inductive method; its approach is transdisciplinar, quantitative and qualitative. Its technique of research is bibliographical and documental.