Colin Wilson, an English writer, philosopher and novelist, nowadays seems to be a somewhat forgotten thinker in the area of contemporary philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. Nonetheless, his main work, The Outsider, together with some reflections and conclusions included therein, still remains a valuable source of inspiring ideas for subsequent generations of humanists. Considerations comprised in The Outsider oscillate around such problems, as: social alienation; possibilities to live free; nihilism and a negation of reality; relation between ideal world and material world; identity and social masks or a problem of effective expression of oneself. The main aim of the article is to compare the idea of Camus’ “rebel” with Wilson's idea of an “outsider” and to answer two questions:

Colin Wilson named his philosophical conception “new and optimistic existentialism” and “phenomenological existentialism.” He wrote: “I have attempted to outline a ‘new existentialism’ that will possess what is so notably lacking in Heidegger and Sartre – the possibility of future development. […] I have preferred to speak of a ‘new existentialism’ rather than a ‘phenomenological existentialism’ because it is less of a mouthful; but later the two terms are used as interchangeable.” In his project of phenomenological existentialism Wilson made a few crucial assumptions, which were already seen in his main work The Outsider: (1) metaphysical dualism (an outsider lives between the reality of thoughts or mind and the reality of empirical experience); (2) the sphere of thoughts is ruled by hardly discovered spiritual laws; (3) the sphere of thoughts can directly be accessible by phenomenological reduction (Einklammerung) or so-called instant mysticism and some psychoactive substances; (4) freedom exists and is possible to experience through a limit situation (Grenzsituation) or crisis. It is worth reminding that, in his work, Wilson distinguishes many types of outsider due to the kind of their activity, temperament and the way of expression.