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{{Infobox philosopher
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'''Kenneth Earl Wilber II''' (born January 31, 1949) is an American theorist and writer on [[transpersonal psychology]] and his own [[Integral theory (Ken Wilber)|integral theory]],<ref>Mark Der Forman, ''A guide to integral psychotherapy: complexity, integration, and spirituality in practice,'' [[SUNY Press]] 2010, p. 9. {{ISBN|978-1-4384-3023-2}}</ref> a four-quadrant grid which purports to encompass all human knowledge and experience.<ref name="
==Life and career==
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In 1987, Wilber moved to [[Boulder, Colorado]], where he worked on his Kosmos trilogy and supervised the work and functioning of the [[Integral Institute]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=About Ken Wilber|url=https://www.famouspsychologists.org/ken-wilber/|website=Famous Psychologists}}</ref>
Wilber wrote ''[[Sex, Ecology, Spirituality]]'' (1995), the first volume of his ''Kosmos Trilogy'', presenting his "theory of everything," a four-quadrant grid in which he summarized his reading in psychology and Eastern and Western philosophy up to that time. ''A Brief History of Everything'' (1996) was the popularised summary of ''Sex, Ecology, Spirituality'' in interview format. ''The Eye of Spirit'' (1997) was a compilation of articles he had written for the journal ''ReVision'' on the relationship between science and religion. Throughout 1997, he had kept journals of his personal experiences, which were published in 1999 as ''One Taste'', a term for [[Cosmic consciousness|unitary consciousness]]. Over the next two years his publisher, [[Shambhala Publications]], released eight re-edited volumes of his ''Collected Works''. In 1999, he finished ''Integral Psychology'' and wrote ''[[A Theory of Everything]]'' (2000). In ''A Theory of Everything'' Wilber attempts to bridge business, politics, science and spirituality and show how they integrate with theories of developmental psychology, such as [[Spiral Dynamics]]. His novel, ''[[Boomeritis]]'' (2002), attempts to expose what he perceives as the [[egotism]] of the [[baby boomers|baby boom generation]]. Frank Visser's ''Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion'' (2003), a guide to Wilber's thought, was praised by Edward J. Sullivan<ref name="Sullivan-2006">{{Cite journal|last=Sullivan|first=Edward J.|date=Winter 2005–06|title=REVIEW: Sullivan/Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion|url=https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1132&context=jaepl|journal=The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning|volume=11|pages=97–99}}</ref> and Daryl S. Paulson, with the latter calling it "an outstanding synthesis of Wilber's published works through the evolution of his thoughts over time. The book will be of value to any transpersonal humanist or integral philosophy student who does not want to read all of Wilber's works to understand his message."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Paulson|first=Daryl S.|date=2004|title=Review of Thought as passion.|url=https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2005-08755-007|journal=Journal of Transpersonal Psychology|volume=36|pages=223–227|via=APA PsycNet}}</ref>
In 2012, Wilber joined the [[advisory board]] of the [[International Simultaneous Policy Organization]] which seeks to end the usual deadlock in tackling global issues through an international simultaneous policy.<ref
Wilber stated in 2011 that he has long suffered from [[chronic fatigue syndrome]], possibly caused by [[RNase]] enzyme deficiency disease.<ref>{{cite news|last=Wilber |first=Ken |title=Ken Wilber Writes About His Horrific, Near-Fatal Illness |url=http://www.nhne.org/news/NewsArticlesArchive/tabid/400/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/2292/language/en-US/Ken-Wilber-Writes-About-His-Horrific-Near-Fatal-Illness.aspx |access-date=May 26, 2011 |newspaper=New Heaven New Earth |date=December 26, 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724141023/http://www.nhne.org/news/NewsArticlesArchive/tabid/400/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/2292/language/en-US/Ken-Wilber-Writes-About-His-Horrific-Near-Fatal-Illness.aspx |archive-date=July 24, 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Wilber|first=Ken|title=RNase Enzyme Deficiency Disease: Wilber's statement about his health|url=http://www.integralworld.net/redd.html|work=IntegralWorld.net|publisher=October 22, 2002|access-date=May 26, 2011|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605120119/http://www.integralworld.net/redd.html|archive-date=June 5, 2011}}</ref>
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e.g. [[Karl Marx|Marx]]
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All Quadrants All Levels (AQAL, pron. "ah-qwul") is the basic framework of integral theory. It models human knowledge and experience with a four-quadrant grid, along the axes of "interior-exterior" and "individual-collective". According to Wilber, it is a comprehensive approach to reality, a metatheory that attempts to explain how academic disciplines and every form of knowledge and experience fit together coherently.<ref name="
AQAL is based on four fundamental concepts and a rest-category: four quadrants, several levels and lines of development, several states of consciousness, and "types", topics which do not fit into these four concepts.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Fiandt | first1 = K. | last2 = Forman | first2 = J. | last3 = Erickson Megel | first3 = M. | display-authors = etal | year = 2003 | title = Integral nursing: an emerging framework for engaging the evolution of the profession | url = http://www.nursingoutlook.org/article/S0029-6554(03)00080-0/abstract | journal = Nursing Outlook | volume = 51 | issue = 3| pages = 130–137 | doi=10.1016/s0029-6554(03)00080-0| pmid = 12830106 }}</ref> "Levels" are the stages of development, from pre-personal through personal to transpersonal. "Lines" of development are various domains which may progress unevenly through different stages. "States" are states of consciousness; according to Wilber persons may have a temporal experience of a higher developmental stage. "Types" is a rest-category, for phenomena which do not fit in the other four concepts.<ref>"Integral Psychology" In: Weiner, Irving B. & Craighead, W. Edward (ed.), ''The Corsini encyclopedia of psychology'', Vol. 2, 4. ed., Wiley 2010, pp. 830 ff. {{ISBN|978-0-470-17026-7}}</ref> In order for an account of the Kosmos to be complete, Wilber believes that it must include each of these five categories. For Wilber, only such an account can be accurately called "integral". In the essay, "Excerpt C: The Ways We Are in This Together", Wilber describes AQAL as "one suggested architecture of the Kosmos".<ref>{{cite web | title=Excerpt C: The Ways We Are In This Together | work=Ken Wilber Online | url=http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/kosmos/excerptC/intro-1.cfm | access-date=December 26, 2005 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051223205255/http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/kosmos/excerptC/intro-1.cfm/ | archive-date=December 23, 2005 }}</ref>
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Wilber believes that the mystical traditions of the world provide access to, and knowledge of, a [[Transcendence (religion)|transcendental]] reality which is perennial, consistent throughout all times and cultures. This proposition underlies the whole of his conceptual edifice, and is an unquestioned assumption. According to David L. McMahan, the perennial position is "largely dismissed by scholars", but "has lost none of its popularity".<ref>{{cite book |last=McMahan |first=David L. |year=2008 |title=The Making of Buddhist Modernism |place=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195183276 |page=269, n. 9}}</ref> Mainstream academia favor a constructivist approach, which is rejected by Wilber as a dangerous relativism. Wilber juxtaposes this generalization to plain materialism, presented as the main paradigm of regular science.<ref name="
In his later works, Wilber argues that manifest reality is composed of four domains, and that each domain, or "quadrant", has its own truth-standard, or test for validity:<ref>{{cite book | last = Wilber | first = Ken | title = The Eye of Spirit | publisher = [[Shambhala]] | location = Boston | year = 1998 | pages = 12–18 | isbn = 1-57062-345-7 }}</ref>
* "Interior individual/1st person": the subjective world, the individual subjective sphere;<ref name="Ken Wilber p. 96">Table and quotations from: {{
* "Interior collective/2nd person": the intersubjective space, the cultural background;<ref name="Ken Wilber p. 96"/>
* "Exterior individual/3rd person": the objective state of affairs;<ref name="Ken Wilber p. 96"/>
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===Pre/trans fallacy===
Wilber believes that many claims about non-rational states make a mistake he calls the pre/trans fallacy. According to Wilber, the non-rational stages of consciousness (what Wilber calls "pre-rational" and "trans-rational" stages) can be easily confused with one another. In Wilber's view, one can reduce trans-rational spiritual realization to pre-rational regression, or one can elevate pre-rational states to the trans-rational domain.<ref>[http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/cowokev3_intro.cfm Introduction to the third volume of The Collected Works of Ken Wilber] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090615012815/http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/cowokev3_intro.cfm/ |date=June 15, 2009 }}</ref> For example, Wilber claims that [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]] and [[Carl Jung|Jung]] commit this fallacy. Freud considered mystical realization to be a [[Regression (psychology)|regression]] to [[infantile]] [[oceanic
===Wilber on science===
Wilber describes the state of the "hard" sciences as limited to "narrow science", which only allows evidence from the lowest realm of consciousness, the [[wikt:sensorimotor|sensorimotor]] (the five senses and their extensions). Wilber sees science in the broad sense as characterized by involving three steps:<ref
* specifying an experiment,
* performing the experiment and observing the results, and
* checking the results with others who have competently performed the same experiment.
He has presented these as "three strands of valid knowledge" in Part III of his book ''[[The Marriage of Sense and Soul]]''.<ref
What Wilber calls "broad science" would include evidence from [[logic]], mathematics, and from the [[symbol]]ic, [[hermeneutics|hermeneutical]], and other realms of [[consciousness]]. Ultimately and ideally, broad science would include the testimony of [[meditation|meditators]] and [[spiritual practice|spiritual practitioners]]. Wilber's own conception of science includes both narrow science and broad science, e.g., using [[electroencephalogram]] machines and other technologies to test the experiences of meditators and other spiritual practitioners, creating what Wilber calls "integral science".{{Citation needed|date=December 2007}}
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According to Wilber's theory, narrow science trumps narrow religion, but broad science trumps narrow science. That is, the natural sciences provide a more inclusive, accurate account of reality than any of the particular [[exoteric]] religious traditions. But an integral approach that uses intersubjectivity to evaluate both religious claims and scientific claims will give a more complete account of reality than narrow science.{{Citation needed|date=December 2007}}
Wilber has referred to [[Stuart Kauffman]], [[Ilya Prigogine]], [[Alfred North Whitehead]], and others who also articulate his [[Vitalism|vitalistic]] and [[Teleology|teleological]] understanding of reality, which is deeply at odds with the [[Neo-Darwinism|modern evolutionary synthesis]].<ref name="
===Later work===
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}}</ref> Critics in multiple fields cite problems with Wilber's interpretations and inaccurate citations of his wide ranging sources, as well as stylistic issues with gratuitous repetition, excessive book length, and hyperbole.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.integralworld.net/visser11.html |title=A Spectrum of Wilber Critics |first=Frank |last=Visser |access-date=April 28, 2006 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060526210405/http://www.integralworld.net/visser11.html |archive-date=May 26, 2006 }}</ref>
Frank Visser writes that Wilber's 1977 book ''The Spectrum of Consciousness'' was praised by [[Transpersonal psychology|transpersonal psychologists]], but also that support for him "even in transpersonal circles" had waned by the early 1990s.<ref name="Sullivan-2006"/> Edward J. Sullivan argued, in his review of Visser's guide ''Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion'', that in the field of composition studies "Wilber's melding of life’s journeys with abstract theorizing could provide an eclectic and challenging model of 'personal-academic' writing", but that "teachers of writing may be critical of his all-too-frequent totalizing assumptions".<ref name="Sullivan-2006" /> Sullivan also said that Visser's book overall gave an impression that Wilber "should think more and publish less."<ref name="Sullivan-2006" />
[[Steve McIntosh]] praises Wilber's work but also argues that Wilber fails to distinguish "philosophy" from his own Vedantic and Buddhist religion.<ref
Psychiatrist [[Stanislav Grof]] has praised Wilber's knowledge and work in the highest terms;<ref>{{cite web |first=Stanislav |last=Grof |url=http://primal-page.com/grofken.htm |title=Ken Wilber's Spectrum Psychology |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091209054241/http://primal-page.com/grofken.htm |archive-date=December 9, 2009 |quote=... Ken has produced an extraordinary work of highly creative synthesis of data drawn from a vast variety of areas and disciplines ... His knowledge of the literature is truly encyclopedic, his analytical mind systematic and incisive, and the clarity of his logic remarkable. The impressive scope, comprehensive nature, and intellectual rigor of Ken's work have helped to make it a widely acclaimed and highly influential theory of transpersonal psychology.}}</ref> however, Grof has criticized the omission of the [[Pre- and perinatal psychology|pre- and peri-natal domains]] from Wilber's spectrum of consciousness, and Wilber's neglect of the psychological importance of biological birth and death.<ref>Grof, ''Beyond the Brain'', 131–137</ref> Grof has described Wilber's writings as having an "often aggressive polemical style that includes strongly worded ''[[ad personam]]'' attacks and is not conducive to personal dialogue."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.stanislavgrof.com/pdf/A%20Brief%20History%20of%20Transpersonal%20Psychology-Grof.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716130649/http://www.stanislavgrof.com/pdf/A%20Brief%20History%20of%20Transpersonal%20Psychology-Grof.pdf|url-status=dead|title=Grof, "A Brief History of Transpersonal Psychology"|archivedate=July 16, 2011}}</ref> Wilber's response is that the world religious traditions do not attest to the importance that Grof assigns to the perinatal.{{sfnp|Visser|2003|p=269}}
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* '' Integral Buddhism: And the Future of Spirituality'', 2018, {{ISBN|1611805600}}
* ''Integral Politics: Its Essential Ingredients '', eBook, 2018
* ''Grace and Grit'', 2020,
* ''Finding Radical Wholeness: The Integral Path to Unity, Growth, and Delight'', 2024, Shambhala, {{ISBN|978-1645471851}}
* ''A Post-Truth World: Politics, Polarization, and a Vision for Transcending the Chaos, Shambhala, 2024'' {{ISBN|9781645473558}}
===Audiobooks===
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[[Category:20th-century mystics]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:American Buddhists]]
[[Category:American spiritual writers]]
[[Category:Integral theory]]
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