Abstract. The article discusses an interaction between human existence and understanding of individuality in the historical perspective. The author addresses a problem of European thought that has emerged simultaneously with the approval of cognition being one of the essences of human existence. He argues that a transformation of gnoseological dualism into existential opposition between being and nihility (or horror) reveals that (i) the cognitive opposition of subject and object is not presupposed but it is generated by a human being in history, and (ii) that the existence as time does not precede to consciousness as a certain finality but it is changed by man himself. The paper aims to use concepts of European philosophy for discussion of contemporary problems that have not existed earlier and to see the latter in retrospect of the philosophy history, which though constantly changing is a fait accompli.