[bhritchie]

I think Austin would consider the "I take it that I'm sitting before a desk" in the second sentence of this article to smuggle in the offending suggestion right at the start. We say "I take it" when we have a general working assumption about things, likely based on second-hand evidence, and on topics about which we are not ourselves experts. On the Austinian view, scepticial doubts tend to rely on intimations like this one: that sitting right in front of something and looking at it is somehow just like hearing about something and then building out some unreflective inferences. And then no doubt it is hard to certify the chain of evidence. But why start there?

Anyway Austin is great, and funny too.