IMO, the philosophers who accept this understanding are the so-called “type-A physicalists” in Chalmers’s taxonomy.
I’m not wholly sure I understand the connection between this and denying that consciousness is a natural kind. The best I can do (and perhaps you or thebestwecan can do better? ;-) ) is:
“If consciousness is a natural kind, then the existence of that natural kind is a separate fact from the existence of such-and-such a physical brain state (and vica versa)”
You’re right that there’s probably not a strict logical relationship between those things. Also, I should note that I have a poor understanding of the variety of different type-B views. What I usually have in mind as “type B” is the view that the connection between consciousness and brain processing is only something we can figure out a posteriori, by noticing the correlation between the two. If you hold that view, it presumably means you think consciousness is a definite thing that we discover introspectively. For example, we can say we’re conscious of an apple in front of us but are not conscious of a very fast visual stimulus. Since we generally assume most of these distinctions between conscious and unconscious events are introspectively clear-cut (though some disagree), there would seem to be a fairly sharp distinction within reality itself between conscious vs unconscious? Hence, consciousness would seem more like a natural kind.
In contrast, the type-A people usually believe that consciousness is a label we give to certain physical processes, and given the complexity of cognitive systems, it’s plausible that different people would draw the boundaries between conscious vs unconscious in different places (if they care to make such a distinction at all). Daniel Dennett, Marvin Minsky, and Susan Blackmore are all type-A people and all of them make the case that the boundaries of consciousness are fuzzy (or even that the distinction between conscious and unconscious isn’t useful at all).
In theory, there could be a type-A physicalist who believes that there will turn out to be some extremely clean distinction in the brain that captures the difference between consciousness vs unconsciousness, such that almost everyone would agree that this is the right way to carve things up. In this case, the type-A person could still believe consciousness will turn out to be a natural kind.
(I’m not an expert on either the type A/B distinction or natural kinds, so apologies if I’m misusing concepts here.)
I’m not wholly sure I understand the connection between this and denying that consciousness is a natural kind. The best I can do (and perhaps you or thebestwecan can do better? ;-) ) is:
“If consciousness is a natural kind, then the existence of that natural kind is a separate fact from the existence of such-and-such a physical brain state (and vica versa)”
You’re right that there’s probably not a strict logical relationship between those things. Also, I should note that I have a poor understanding of the variety of different type-B views. What I usually have in mind as “type B” is the view that the connection between consciousness and brain processing is only something we can figure out a posteriori, by noticing the correlation between the two. If you hold that view, it presumably means you think consciousness is a definite thing that we discover introspectively. For example, we can say we’re conscious of an apple in front of us but are not conscious of a very fast visual stimulus. Since we generally assume most of these distinctions between conscious and unconscious events are introspectively clear-cut (though some disagree), there would seem to be a fairly sharp distinction within reality itself between conscious vs unconscious? Hence, consciousness would seem more like a natural kind.
In contrast, the type-A people usually believe that consciousness is a label we give to certain physical processes, and given the complexity of cognitive systems, it’s plausible that different people would draw the boundaries between conscious vs unconscious in different places (if they care to make such a distinction at all). Daniel Dennett, Marvin Minsky, and Susan Blackmore are all type-A people and all of them make the case that the boundaries of consciousness are fuzzy (or even that the distinction between conscious and unconscious isn’t useful at all).
In theory, there could be a type-A physicalist who believes that there will turn out to be some extremely clean distinction in the brain that captures the difference between consciousness vs unconsciousness, such that almost everyone would agree that this is the right way to carve things up. In this case, the type-A person could still believe consciousness will turn out to be a natural kind.
(I’m not an expert on either the type A/B distinction or natural kinds, so apologies if I’m misusing concepts here.)