The Human Being in the Light of Existentialist Philosophy. In A Collection of Essays in Honor of Prof. Dr. Volodymyr Yanev, Munich: Ukrainian Free University Press (UFU), 1983, pp. 849-858.

The article examines the problem of the human being from the standpoint of existentialist philosophy. Particular attention is given to self-knowledge, personhood, freedom, choice, crisis, and transcendence. The author traces the emergence of existential themes from Socrates to Kierkegaard, one of the founders of existentialism. Separate attention is paid to the distinction between essence and existence, as well as to the shift from a universalist and rationalist understanding of the human being to an understanding of the human being as a unique person who comes to know himself or herself through personal experience and life situations.

Ostap Tarnavskyi explores religious and non-religious interpretations of human existence, analyzing the views of Gabriel Marcel, Mykola Berdiaev, Max Scheler, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Jaspers, Jacques Maritain, and Paul Tillich. Freedom is understood as the necessity of personal choice and responsibility for one's own existence, and also as a question of the human being's relationship with God and transcendence.

The author shows that existentialism places the concrete human being at the center of philosophical reflection, along with his or her experiences, crises, and search for meaning. This opens the possibility of combining philosophical self-knowledge with religious experience.