Malick received a B.A. in philosophy from Harvard College, graduating "summa cum laude" and Phi Beta Kappa in 1965. He started a BPhil in philosophy (a two-year master's degree) at Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. After a disagreement with his advisor, Gilbert Ryle, over his thesis on the concept of world in Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, Malick left Oxford without a degree. In 1969, Northwestern University Press published Malick's translation of Heidegger's "Vom Wesen des Grundes" as "The Essence of Reasons".