Why is there something rather than nothing? What happens after death? These existential questions traverse all times and cultures. Far from being mere curiosities, they have a long history that intertwines ancient philosophy, medieval theology, and more recently, neuroscience and psychiatry.
When philosophy transforms existential questions into a discipline
Before becoming subjects of podcasts or late-night discussions among friends, the great inquiries into the meaning of life were the playground of Greek philosophers. Socrates, in the fifth century BCE, posed his questions in the streets of Athens. His method involved questioning his interlocutors until they realized they did not know what they believed they knew.
Aristotle formalized the question of happiness under the term eudaimonia, often translated as “fulfilled life.” It was not a passive happiness. It was an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, exercised over an entire life.
Have you ever noticed that the question “why am I here?” often arises during times of upheaval (grief, separation, career change)? This link between personal crisis and philosophical questioning was already known to the Stoics. Marcus Aurelius wrote his existential reflections in his personal journals, right in the middle of military campaigns. Philosophy often arises from a shock with reality, not from a leisurely pastime.
Francophone resources like pourquipourquoi.fr perpetuate this tradition by exploring everyday inquiries with a curious and well-documented perspective.
Existential anxiety and modern philosophy: from Kierkegaard to Sartre
The turning point occurs in the nineteenth century. Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher, is the first to place anxiety at the center of the reflection on existence. For him, anxiety is not a disease. It is the direct consequence of human freedom: every choice excludes all others, and this awareness provokes vertigo.
Friedrich Nietzsche takes the reasoning further with his famous formula about the death of God. He is not speaking of theology in the strict sense. He describes the collapse of a shared framework of meaning in Western societies. Without this framework, each individual must construct their own reference points, which is both liberating and exhausting.
Jean-Paul Sartre, in the twentieth century, formalizes all this in existentialism. His thesis can be summed up in one sentence: existence precedes essence. In other words, there is no predefined human nature. Each person defines themselves by their actions. This idea, radical at the time, remains one of the most influential in contemporary thought.
Why these questions resurface during periods of collective crisis
The link between existential questioning and social context is not new, but it takes on particular significance today. The JDD has used the term “existential fatigue” to describe the French climate as the political deadline of 2027 approaches. This formulation goes beyond individual inquiries about the meaning of life. It connects classical existential questions to a political disillusionment and a sense of historical deadlock.
This is not the first time. The post-war period produced Sartrean existentialism. The current crisis of meaning, fueled by climate uncertainty and distrust in institutions, generates a massive return to philosophy in the public sphere. Philosophy Magazine, for example, celebrated its twentieth anniversary by changing its format, a sign that the demand for this type of content is not waning.
Existential questions and mental health: a new research field
For a long time, existential crises (loss of meaning, feeling of emptiness, anxiety about death) were the exclusive domain of philosophy or spirituality. This compartmentalization is changing.
The FondaMental Foundation, specializing in psychiatric disorders, is working to identify biological markers to better understand why a treatment works for one patient and fails for another. This approach, called precision psychiatry, integrates manifestations of existential crises into a biomedical framework. The loss of meaning becomes a measurable symptom, not just a dissertation topic.
Carl Gustav Jung paved the way in the twentieth century by integrating the quest for meaning into his clinical practice. He believed that the second half of life was naturally oriented towards questions of meaning and transcendence. The difference today is that research seeks concrete tools to support these transitions.
What sophrology and complementary approaches bring
Alongside the medical field, disciplines like sophrology offer practical support in the face of existential questioning. Training centers, such as ESSA in Strasbourg, train practitioners to work on bodily anchoring to help individuals during periods of deep doubt.
The approach is different from philosophy or psychiatry. It does not seek to answer the question “what is the meaning of life?”. It helps to navigate the period when this question becomes paralyzing.
Science, artificial intelligence, and the decline of belief in God
The great existential questions have long found their answers in religion. The question “why do we exist?” received a clear answer in monotheisms: because a creator willed it. This framework of response is gradually crumbling.
Several factors contribute to this decline:
- Scientific advances, which provide material explanations for phenomena once attributed to the divine (origin of the universe, mechanisms of consciousness).
- Artificial intelligence, which raises new questions about human specificity: if a machine can reason, create, converse, what really distinguishes us?
- The secularization of Western societies, which shifts existential questions from the religious domain to the individual and therapeutic domain.
This phenomenon does not mean that the questions disappear. They change form. Instead of “why does God allow suffering?”, the question becomes “how to construct meaning in a world without a common narrative?”.
Existential questions do not disappear with modernity. They migrate from one framework to another, from religion to philosophy, from philosophy to psychiatry, from psychiatry to artificial intelligence. What remains constant is the human need to articulate these inquiries, even without the guarantee of obtaining a definitive answer.