One of the central challenges facing the science of consciousness is that of identifying ways of measuring consciousness. Can we go beyond our pre-theoretical ways of detecting consciousness and develop measures that are independently validated? Some theorists think not, and argue that we are necessarily restricted to the pre-theoretical markers of consciousness with which we begin. Other theorists are more optimistic, and think that we will be able to develop independent measures of consciousness–in other words, “consciousness meters”. This talk critically examines one proposal for how to identify measures of consciousness—the natural kind approach—and asks whether it can be reconciled with various widely-held commitments in the philosophy of mind.
