Why should our mind-reading abilities be involved in the explanation of phenomenal consciousness?

in this paper i consider recent discussions within the representationalist theories of phenomenal consciousness, in particular, the discussions between first order representationalism (for) and higher order representationalism (hor). i aim to show that either there is only a terminological dispute between them or, if the discussion is not simply terminological, then hor is based on a misunderstanding of the phenomena that a theory of phenomenal consciousness should explain. first, i argue that we can defend first order representationalism from carruthers' attacks and ignore higher order thoughts in our account of phenomenal consciousness. then i offer a diagnostic of carruthers' misunderstanding. in the last section i consider further reasons to include mindreading abilities in an explanation of phenomenal consciousness.