This chapter examines a much-discussed puzzle about how the security of avowals (specifically, the security of avowals that specify one’s mental contents) can be reconciled with so-called ’externalism’ about content. It has been argued that if externalism is true, then we face a form of scepticism about content, analogous to scepticism about the external world. However, the author argues that this reasoning relies on a ’recognitional conception’ of knowledge of content, which ought to be rejected. She further suggests that self-ascriptions of mental content are protected from sceptical arguments precisely because they do not involve or require a separate recognition of those contents.
Keywords: externalism about content, recognition, self-knowledge, scepticism,