The Existential Dimension of the Phenomena of Health and Illness as Specific Ways of Being Human in the World

The article examines the phenomena of health and illness, which, from the point of view of the existential approach, appear as specific ways of being human in the world.The author finds that the existential understanding of health is close to the apophatic one: it involves the awareness of health through its absence, that is, through illness or fear of death. In this way, it is illness that shows with all clarity how valuable and beautiful a healthy life is.The author considers the existential aspects of understanding health and illness at the physical, mental and social levels. On the physical level, existence is sometimes replaced by synonyms, for example, when talking about ‘vitality’, and illness is often perceived as a disorder of functions, the signal of which is pain, a significant increase in which raises the existential question ‘is it worth living?’. In the field of mental health, the term existence is being used on a regular basis: ‘existential depression’ (C.Schneider), ‘existential vacuum’ (V.Frankl). At the social level, several aspects are emphasized: first, health as an ability to communicate (K.Jaspers); second, for a modern person, health is one of the ways of realizing oneself in life, rather than an opportunity to carry out certain activities.The article considers the issues of application of medical practices and technologies on which the health of a modern person largely depends. It is noted that the use of medical technologies with the aim of improving a given human nature carries both advantages and potential threats and risks. The pursuit of an ideal of health becomes an existential condition of a person. He or she tries to achieve this ideal because he or she wants to feel at peace with himself or herself and links this achievement to medical technologies, in particular those that contribute to human improvement. New biotechnologies can lead to changes not only in what a person does, but also in who he or she is, which can call into question human nature and cause additional existential problems associated with non-authentic existence.