ABSTRACT
The notion of malaise in human existence reaches as far in the past as reflections on the relation between individuals and society, since individuals strive to comprehend social life but also to understand the reasons why they should resist it or even transcend it. A diachrony of the different analyses of lived experience, which Sartre thought of as 'too much and not enough', remains to be built, across the content of social philosophies, the social sciences or even political pamphlets. The concept of malaise and its ties to the notion of the individual and the idea of freedom have traditionally been a part of social analyses since antiquity. Malaise, individualization, the notion of freedom and the demand for it, are parts of that world, as is insecurity, social angst, and the lack of an overarching social project, to mention only a few of the phenomena so readily thought to characterize contemporary society.
