How to Use determinism in a Sentence

determinism

noun
  • For them, the idea of determinism – that one thing leads to another – is sacrosanct.
    — The Physics Arxiv Blog, Discover Magazine, 15 Feb. 2022
  • If the answer to the Question is free will, then the answers to the other questions matter. If determinism is the law of the universe, then nothing matters.
    — Craig Hanks, National Review, 2 May 2020
  • In a purely neurological sense, if determinism held sway, his patients have no free will and no hope.
    — Steve Volk, Discover Magazine, 10 Dec. 2013
  • Researchers shy away from calling children psychopaths; the term carries too much stigma, and too much determinism.
    — Barbara Bradley Hagerty, The Atlantic, 16 May 2017
  • One of the bedrock philosophical concepts under all of physics is something called causal determinism.
    — Paul Sutter, Space.com, 29 Dec. 2025
  • Third, the moral challenge to retribution has nothing to do with freedom or determinism.
    — Kieran Setiya, The Atlantic, 3 Nov. 2023
  • What happens to Didion when a narrow and cracked determinism swallows not just the women’s movement but the whole world?
    — Zadie Smith, The New Yorker, 24 Dec. 2021
  • Both determinism and free will can lend themselves to a conception of life that implies a sense of underlying order.
    — The New Yorker, 27 Nov. 2023
  • This one-two punch of determinism and reversibility means that, in terms of physics, information must be preserved during any process.
    — Paul Sutter, Ars Technica, 3 Oct. 2022
  • This question feeds into the film’s broader exploration of determinism.
    — Lise Pedersen, Variety, 17 Apr. 2026
  • His was a kinder form of the historical determinism of a Morgan or a Grant perhaps, but no less blinkered and time-bound.
    — Charles King, Foreign Affairs, 24 Oct. 2023
  • Instead the world is a layer cake of determinism and indeterminism.
    — George Musser, Scientific American, 1 Sep. 2015
  • In the Mandelbrot set, order and chaos lived in harmony; determinism and free will could be reconciled.
    — Quanta Magazine, 26 Jan. 2024
  • Critics accused him of veering back toward Manichaean determinism.
    — Shai Tubali, Big Think, 30 Sep. 2025
  • Hossenfelder’s commitment to determinism puts her in good company.
    — John Horgan, Scientific American, 10 Mar. 2022
  • Real-time operation is one thing, and determinism is another.
    — Jacek Krywko, Ars Technica, 2 Oct. 2020
  • Whorf has since become the mascot of linguistic determinism—the position that language is the ultimate arbiter of thought.
    — Manvir Singh, The New Yorker, 23 Dec. 2024
  • Towards the end of his life, Watson seemed as devoted to genetic determinism as the past eugenics movement had been.
    — Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR, 7 Nov. 2025
  • The present is no longer the result of determinism but response, not mechanistic reaction but creative intra-action.
    — Jenny Odell, Longreads, 2 June 2026
  • And when you're done, check out this 2007 piece by Mike Hulme, who also warned about the seduction of climate determinism.
    — Keith Kloor, Discover Magazine, 20 Mar. 2014
  • Well, an algorithm is simply a series of predictable steps to reach an outcome, and in the study of philosophy, this idea plays a big part in questions about free will versus determinism.
    — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 10 June 2021
  • His air of louche mischief attended his farces about Dada and James Joyce and moral determinism, his cleverness worn as lightly as a scarf.
    — Helen Shaw, New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2025
  • Spider-Man in black was moodier and spookier; comics costumes tend toward that kind of visual determinism in general.
    — Adam Rogers, WIRED, 3 July 2019
  • And yet, despite the risks, Ademidun resides on the optimistic side of technological determinism.
    — Robert Stevens, Fortune, 28 Dec. 2022
  • Even her persistent foreshadowing, which would be labored from another writer, plays into her brutal game of determinism.
    — Rachel Cusk, Harper's Magazine, 21 Sep. 2023
  • Technological determinism is perhaps the great intellectual temptation of our decade—try not to fall for it.
    — Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 27 Apr. 2018
  • If Wander Suero's parents were not yet convinced of the power of nominative determinism, the past year has given them something to think about.
    — Jon Paul Hoornstra, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 Nov. 2025
  • At its core, the film is a cautionary tale of biological determinism—how genetic data, when misused, can restrict rather than empower.
    — Niven R. Narain, Forbes.com, 18 Sep. 2025
  • That’s understandable enough—simple economic determinism, as the Marxists might say.
    — George Melloan, WSJ, 6 Sep. 2017
  • Stereotyping a person or a whole group of people does not help, especially if such labeling is rooted in biological determinism.
    — The Christian Science Monitor, 11 Aug. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'determinism.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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