MENTAL AND EXISTENTIAL HUMAN SECURITY AS A PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Abstract

Introduction. Threats posed by the development of digital technologies, hybrid forms of confrontation, and the transformation of human nature create a new dimension of global security, in which humans become both the source and target of threats. The impact on the cognitive, mental, and existential spheres transforms security into a philosophical problem of preserving human existence itself. The purpose of the study is philosophical reflection on the existential and mental human security in the context of a new type of war characterised by algorithmic control, simulated environments, and the strategic destruction of subjective integrity. Methods. The study is based on systemic, anthropological, and axiological approaches that allow us to identify the relationship between digital technologies, mental forms of influence, and the loss of the ability to discern, critically judge, and determine one's own identity. Scientific novelty of the research. The author presents a conceptual justification of existential and mental security as extreme categories of philosophical analysis in the context of cognitive warfare, which replaces freedom of behaviour with programmed decisions and proposes a philosophical rethinking of mental security as an ontological boundary separating humans from programmed existence. Results. The author formulates and systematises typology of threats, ranging from climatic and biological to mental and anthropological ones; justifies a classification of security systems by type of impact and vulnerability structures. It is established that mental impact functions as a key instrument of hybrid warfare aimed at destroying the cognitive core of the personality. Conclusions. The philosophy of security needs to be rethought as a system of protection not only from physical destruction, but also from the semantic erosion of human nature. Mental and existential security appears as a condition for preserving what is human in a person — their freedom, rationality, and cultural continuity in a world where threats are formed within the technological environment itself.