On Internalism and Externalism in "Epistemic Justification"

The problem of internalism vs. externalism is usually taken up in the context of "justification of belief," but I don't think the question makes any sense. (I put "justification of belief" in scare quotes because I don't share the assumption that belief should be justified in the first place. In my view, doubt, or change in belief, is what requires justification.)

Let internalism denote the idea "that everything necessary to provide justification for a belief must be immediately available to an agent's consciousness," and externalism the view that "factors other than those internal to the believer can affect the justificatory status of a belief" (taken from Wikipedia because I'm lazy). Now, what is meant by the term "consciousness"? The issue persists even if the phrase "immediately available to consciousness" is replaced by concepts such as "access," "mental states," etc. What are these terms supposed to mean?

I think the question of internalism vs. externalism is based on a confusion of two distinct standpoints concerning mind, viz. the first-person standpoint and third-person standpoint. From the third-person standpoint, mind (or consciousness, mental states, or whatever) is a purely natural phenomenon. It is a model that certain organisms, and perhaps non-organisms, build of their surrounding environment. From this standpoint, all minds are equivalent: there is nothing special about my mind compared to that of others. On the other hand, from the first-person standpoint, the world is in my mind, in the sense that everything is experienced as my experience. From this standpoint, "my mind" (if such an expression be tolerated) partakes of a status higher than that of other minds: it is what Kant called the transcendental subject.

Now, the issue of epistemic justification can make sense only from the first-person, or transcendental, standpoint. This is because there can be no such thing as "justification" in a naturalist view of the world, and the third-person standpoint is none other than the naturalist standpoint. On the other hand, phrases such as "internal to the mind" and "external to the mind" can make sense only from the third-person standpoint. This is precisely the manifestation of a naturalist conception of mind; there can be nothing outside of mind from the transcendental standpoint. The internalism vs. externalism debate can thus be understood as the result of applying the naturalist conception of mind to a question that can make sense only from the transcendental standpoint.