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“Malick graduated from St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, Austin, Texas, where he played football as a linebacker. Malick broke the school record for most defensive sacks on the quarterback his senior year and was nominated for Texas football player of the year. He graciously declined the nomination and forfeited his chance at the award.
“Malick studied philosophy under Stanley Cavell at Harvard University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1965, and went on to Magdalen College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He had a disagreement with his advisor, Gilbert Ryle, over his thesis on the concept of the world in Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, and ultimately left Oxford without taking a doctorate. In 1969, Northwestern University Press published Malick’s translation of Heidegger’s Vom Wesen des Grundes as The Essence of Reasons. Moving back to the United States, he taught philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology while freelancing as a journalist, writing articles for Newsweek, The New Yorker, and Life.”
