Ken Wilber

Kenneth Earl Wilber, Jr. (b. January 31, 1949) is a contemporary writer and thinker whose primary focus is the development and exposition of an integral theory of consciousness. His first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, sought to integrate a number of disparate fields, including metaphysics, psychology, spirituality, the natural sciences, the arts and humanities.

Wilber is not widely recognized by mainstream academia, as he has generally failed to publish in any recognized peer-reviewed journals, expect for two articles that have appeared in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. Defenders of his work suggest that his failure to publish in mainstream journals is a consequence of the meta-disciplinary and meta-theoretical nature of Integral Theory, which the highly specialized orientation of academic journals and the peer review process itself are not structured to support.

Critics of his work, on the other hand, seem to agree that, despite Wilber’s efforts to develop an integrated theory, his overall position is has been described as excessively objectifying, masculinist, and denigrating of emotion. William Irwin Thompson has suggested that Wilber’s approach suffers from a scheme of compulsive mapping and textbook categorizations. Christian de Quincey evoked an acerbic response from Wilber when he suggested that Wilber’s theories were simply an intellectual edifice, rather than anything substantive. Finally, Steve McIntosh argues that Wilber’s theories are contaminated by his own investment in Vedanta and Buddhism, wherein he fails to separate those elements from philosophy as an objective area of study. McIntosh goes on to suggest that Wilber misinterprets Howard Gardner’s work in multiple intelligences, while also failing to acknowledge Daniel Goleman’s differentiation between rational intelligence and emotional intelligence.