Radical internalism meets radical externalism or: Smithies’ epistemology transcendentalised

In The Epistemic Role of Consciousness (2019), Declan Smithies has carried out a thorough radical internalist programme. Along the way, he compares and contrasts many different views, including a group he calls “radical externalism”. From the labels, it might seem that radical internalism and radical externalism must be very different in their core commitments. In this short note, I will single out a version of radical externalism—factivism, more specifically John McDowell’s version (McDowell, J. (1994). Mind and world. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press., McDowell, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55:877–893, 1995, McDowell, J. (2011). Perception as a capacity for knowledge. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press.)—and argue that actually this version has many similarities with Smithies radical internalism. Where there are differences, they do not obviously lie at the internalist/externalist juncture. The main point of this comparison is that philosophical positions that seem very different can share much common ground, and in seeing this, one can be in a better position to understand the crucial points of disagreement.