# Sound and Illusion **Opening (not a real abstract):** In Sense and Sensibilia J.L. Austin mounts a polemical assault on a philosophical view of perception that is now rarely endorsed (the sense-datum theory), and much of Austin’s discussion is taken up with the attempt to dismantle an argument that few now take seriously (the ‘argument from illusion’).1 So it might be thought that if one wanted to salvage from that work ideas relevant to current philosophical concerns about perception, one would do well to look past the negative, critical remarks that Austin makes about the sense-datum theory, and focus instead on trying to distil from his comments the positive philosophical theses with which he sought to replace it. However, while I don’t want to suggest that there are no such positive theses to be uncovered in Sense and Sensibilia, I do think that if we were to adopt that approach, we **Authors:** [[Soteriou]]