Aldous Huxley | |
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Born | Aldous Leonard Huxley 26 July 1894 Godalming, Surrey, England |
Died | 22 November 1963 Los Angeles County, California, United States | (aged 69)
Resting place | Compton, Surrey |
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Children | Matthew |
Relatives |
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Academic background | |
Education | Balliol College, Oxford |
Influences | |
Academic work | |
Discipline | 20th-century philosophy |
Sub-discipline | Western philosophy |
School or tradition | Perennialism |
Main interests | |
Notable works | |
Signature | |
Aldous Leonard Huxley (/ˈɔːldəs/ AWL-dəs; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher.[1][2][3][4] His bibliography spans nearly 50 books,[5][6] including novels and non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with an undergraduate degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death.[7] By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time.[8] He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times,[9] and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.[10]
Huxley was a pacifist.[11] He grew interested in philosophical mysticism,[11][12][13] as well as universalism,[11][14] addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.
Inge's agreement with Huxley on several essential points indicates the respect Huxley's position commanded from some important philosophers ... And now we have a book by Aldous Huxley, duly labelled The Perennial Philosophy. ... He is now quite definitely a mystical philosopher.
Aldous Huxley, as a writer of fiction in the 20th century, willingly assumes the role of a modern philosopher-king or literary prophet by examining the essence of what it means to be human in the modern age. ... Huxley was a prolific genius who was always searching throughout his life for an understanding of self and one's place within the universe.
He was also a philosopher, mystic, social prophet, political thinker, and world traveler who had a detailed knowledge of music, medicine, science, technology, history, literature and Eastern religions.
Huxley was a philosopher but his viewpoint was not determined by the intellect alone. He believed the rational mind could only speculate about truth and never find it directly.
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