Vasyl Zenkovskyi: Life Path and Scientific Heritage

Abstract

The article describes the life events of the famous philosopher, theologian, psychologist, and educator Vasyl Zenkovsky, a native of Proskuriv. He graduated from a gymnasium in Kyiv, studied at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, and graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Kyiv University. He was the head of the Kyiv Religious and Philosophical Society. In 1915 he defended his doctoral dissertation.

In 1919, he was forced to leave Ukraine and emigrate to the West. His philosophical teachings included metaphysics, epistemology, and anthropology. He followed the Christian tradition of understanding the world and man. The scientist's Orthodox worldview did not contradict his academic studies, nor did it prevent him from dialoguing on scientific issues with scientists from different countries. He combined religious views on the nature of the psyche and highly valued the emotional elements of the psyche. In his works, he showed the peculiarities of mental phenomena and their regularities in comparison with the phenomena of the material world.