AtomicQuote

Kenan Malik Quote

Insofar as it is true, the idea that our actions or beliefs are merely one link in a causal link that runs back to the beginning of the universe is making a trivial claim. Insofar as it is saying something profound, the claim is untrue.

Kenan Malik

Insofar as it is true, the idea that our actions or beliefs are merely one link in a causal link that runs back to the beginning of the universe is making a trivial claim. Insofar as it is saying something profound, the claim is untrue.

Tags: causality, free will, truth

Related Quotes

Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Tags: causality, causation, cause and effect, chance, darwinism, inspirational, kalam cosmological argument, luck, naturalism, necessity

I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady...

Max Born

I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady...

Tags: atoms, causality, ideas, illuminating, knowledge, matter, philosophers, philosophy, physics, progress

Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations...

Aldous Huxley

Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations...

Tags: causality, error, intelligence, theories

The sum of the particular intentions of God is the universe itself.

Simone Weil

The sum of the particular intentions of God is the universe itself.

Tags: causality, god, universe, will of god

We are particularly concerned with the question to what degree approval and implementation of an explanatory model minimising collective or institutional responsibility for certain problems and emphas...

Daniel Waterman

We are particularly concerned with the question to what degree approval and implementation of an explanatory model minimising collective or institutional responsibility for certain problems and emphas...

Tags: causality, criminal sentencing, diminished responsibility, explanatory model, institutional responsibility, mental health, personal responsibility, pharmacology

Belief in the causal nexus is superstition.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Belief in the causal nexus is superstition.

Tags: causality, superstition

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade...

Ayn Rand

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade...

Tags: atheism, capitalism, causality, commerce, constitution, crisis, drugs, economics, economy, force
About Kenan Malik

Kenan Malik (born 26 January 1960) is a British writer, lecturer and broadcaster, trained in neurobiology and the history of science. As an academic author, his focus is on the philosophy of biology, and contemporary theories of multiculturalism, pluralism, and race. These topics are core concerns in The Meaning of Race (1996), Man, Beast and Zombie (2000) and Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides Are Wrong in the Race Debate (2008).
Malik defends the values of the 18th-century Enlightenment, which he sees as having been distorted and misunderstood in more recent political and scientific thought. He was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2010. In March 2025, Guardian Media Group agreed to pay "substantial" damages to Douglas Murray over a column in which Malik had made the untrue statement that Murray had encouraged the 2024 United Kingdom riots.