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Reality check: the existentialist Colin Wilson and consciousness theory in the 21st century
The English philosopher Colin Wilson was a leading 20th-century thinker on the subject of consciousness. Here, for the first time, his pioneering work is discussed in the contexts of today’s crucial scientific and philosophical debate about the nature of consciousness and of a post-materialist idealist ontology
Because so much of the philosopher-novelist Colin Wilson’s career dealt with questions of human consciousness and how it could be extended, as well as how a holistic underlying reality of existence could be identified, I have come to feel it’s important to discuss the relevance of his work in the context of today’s vitally important scientific and philosophical debate about consciousness, and also of the latest arguments for metaphysical idealism.
As long ago as 1966, Wilson (1931–2013) asserted in his Introduction to the New Existentialism, the seventh and concluding volume in his seminal ‘Outsider cycle’: ‘Consciousness must not be taken for granted as something too obvious to need further questioning. Consciousness itself must be studied…’
