ABSTRACT
Faced with the problem of conscious thought, externalist treatments of mental content confront severe difficulties. States of consciousness seemingly are intrinsic features of the conscious subject and so, the content of conscious thoughts cannot be given a thoroughly externalistic treatment. Externalists can attempt various lines of reply to this argument, but none that plausibly leave conscious thought dependent upon an externalist view of content. Thus, an internalist theory of representation or mental content would seem to be needed. Unfortunately, it is far from clear how to construct such a theory. Conscious intentionality may, somehow, be a primitive or fundamental feature of the world. One can see the temptation to treat conscious experience as representationally sui generis. The misguided urge to develop a philosophical or quasi-scientific theory of intentionality will then manifest itself as perpetual frustration and bewilderment. Externalism entails the anti-Cartesian catastrophe. The idea that externalism has any bearing on scepticism is just an epistemological aspect of the anti-Cartesian catastrophe.
