Wilfrid Desan was born in Belgium and emigrated to the United States in 1948 to attend Harvard University. He received his doctorate in 1951. In 1952, he gained a lectureship at the philosophy department of Kenyon College. In 1957, he joined Georgetown University where he remained for the rest of his academic career and where he enjoyed a good reputation as teacher and a clear writer. He also had appointments as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Villanova University and Visiting Professor at George Mason University. He developed his own noetic philosophy in his three-volume work The Planetary Man, a prescient, pioneering vision of globalisation unifying the world's peoples.