Rein Raud
@reinraud.bsky.social
professor @Tallinn University
process philosophy, cultural & social theory, subjectivity & selfhood, Dōgen & comparative philosophy in general
fiction (in Estonian)
work in progress: a process theory of ethics & politics
more: www.reinraud.com
process philosophy, cultural & social theory, subjectivity & selfhood, Dōgen & comparative philosophy in general
fiction (in Estonian)
work in progress: a process theory of ethics & politics
more: www.reinraud.com
"The Linguistic Carnival of Thought" is out now!
October 29, 2025 at 10:43 AM
"The Linguistic Carnival of Thought" is out now!
For those who enjoy a good laugh: Hugleikur Dagsson has joined this platform, because of censorship in the Meta. Irreverent and witty as usual, a bit like what George Carlin would have looked like if his jokes were drawn.
October 24, 2025 at 8:40 AM
For those who enjoy a good laugh: Hugleikur Dagsson has joined this platform, because of censorship in the Meta. Irreverent and witty as usual, a bit like what George Carlin would have looked like if his jokes were drawn.
This is out now! Let me know if you wish to read it but do not have access - some free e-prints are still available.
Power: a processual view
The article proposes a new way to define power and to evaluate it in ethical terms, based on a processual view instead of the habitual object-oriented one. It first presents an outline of process o...
www.tandfonline.com
August 22, 2025 at 11:59 AM
This is out now! Let me know if you wish to read it but do not have access - some free e-prints are still available.
Reposted by Rein Raud
👍🏾➕➖➗✖️👇🏾
Delightful story about a 17-year-old homeschooler who disproved the 40-year-old Mizohata-Takeuchi conjecture. She decided to apply straight to graduate school, skipping the rest of high school and college. When she finishes, a PhD will be her first degree.
At 17, Hannah Cairo Solved a Major Math Mystery | Quanta Magazine
After finding the homeschooling life confining, the teen petitioned her way into a graduate class at Berkeley, where she ended up disproving a 40-year-old conjecture.
www.quantamagazine.org
August 2, 2025 at 4:02 PM
👍🏾➕➖➗✖️👇🏾
Coming out this spring! Stay tuned!
Cover art © Peeter Laurits
Cover art © Peeter Laurits
April 30, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Coming out this spring! Stay tuned!
Cover art © Peeter Laurits
Cover art © Peeter Laurits
Very happy to note these perceptive comments on my "Being in Flux" by Thomas Fröhlich, a German scholar working on rather different topics than myself, have now been made public.
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
(PDF) Thomas Fröhlich Comments on Rein Raud, Being in Flux
PDF | added on March 25 th , 2025) Heving been focused on Whitehead's process ontology since long, I was astonished to detect an innovative and highly... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
www.researchgate.net
March 25, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Very happy to note these perceptive comments on my "Being in Flux" by Thomas Fröhlich, a German scholar working on rather different topics than myself, have now been made public.
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
Garret Graff has been reporting on US events as if they were "happening overseas in a foreign country, where we’re used to foreign correspondents writing with more incisive authority" - although a US publication would hardly dedicate so much space to anything happening in a foreign country.
White Nationalist Forces Consolidate Power Alongside Musk’s Junta
A second update on Elon Musk's coup from our intrepid imaginary foreign correspondent
www.doomsdayscenario.co
February 11, 2025 at 6:45 AM
Garret Graff has been reporting on US events as if they were "happening overseas in a foreign country, where we’re used to foreign correspondents writing with more incisive authority" - although a US publication would hardly dedicate so much space to anything happening in a foreign country.
One of the things Putin has been constantly claiming is that the US, despite all its talk about "democracy" and "human rights" is fundamentally just like Russia. Trump does not have to do Putin's bidding directly. His greatest service to Putin is making his words come true. 1/2
January 26, 2025 at 7:31 AM
One of the things Putin has been constantly claiming is that the US, despite all its talk about "democracy" and "human rights" is fundamentally just like Russia. Trump does not have to do Putin's bidding directly. His greatest service to Putin is making his words come true. 1/2
Just discovered the online philosophy journal Klesis, via @philalethe1.bsky.social - seems very interesting, mostly in French, but with some pieces in English, incl by David Chalmers, @keithfrankish.bsky.social, @lukeroelofs.bsky.social and others. Certainly seems worth following!
January 26, 2025 at 5:49 AM
Just discovered the online philosophy journal Klesis, via @philalethe1.bsky.social - seems very interesting, mostly in French, but with some pieces in English, incl by David Chalmers, @keithfrankish.bsky.social, @lukeroelofs.bsky.social and others. Certainly seems worth following!
There is a profound contradiction at the heart of the "conservative" (=radical extreme right) worldview: on the one hand, they want women to bear as many children as possible, on the other, they do what they can to make the planet uninhabitable by the time these children might come of age.
January 21, 2025 at 9:55 AM
There is a profound contradiction at the heart of the "conservative" (=radical extreme right) worldview: on the one hand, they want women to bear as many children as possible, on the other, they do what they can to make the planet uninhabitable by the time these children might come of age.
Reposted by Rein Raud
An information dark age is upon us. I’m logging off | Stewart Lee
An information dark age is upon us. I’m logging off | Stewart Lee
As Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos attempt to reshape our reality, my advice is to avoid their toxic platforms and wait it out
Wow! That escalated quickly. Last time I filed my supposedly funny column, only two weeks ago, Los Angeles wasn’t on fire;…
www.theguardian.com
January 19, 2025 at 10:06 AM
An information dark age is upon us. I’m logging off | Stewart Lee
Now that the birthday of #Deleuze is over, I hope nobody minds my saying that I have a problem with him. The reason? He gets too much credit as the inventor of things that had been invented long before him by people he had no respect for. Who? Asian philosophers. The list is too long.
January 19, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Now that the birthday of #Deleuze is over, I hope nobody minds my saying that I have a problem with him. The reason? He gets too much credit as the inventor of things that had been invented long before him by people he had no respect for. Who? Asian philosophers. The list is too long.
A metaphysician is a physician who cures other physicians. And metastable? A building where metahorses live.
January 18, 2025 at 7:24 PM
A metaphysician is a physician who cures other physicians. And metastable? A building where metahorses live.
Anyone interested in process ontology might want to look at Dynamic Realism - Uncovering the Reality of Becoming through Phenomenology and Process Philosophy, by Tina Röck (Edinburgh UP 2022). We share a lot, but there are interesting differences - she relies a lot on Husserl, quite surprisingly!
January 12, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Anyone interested in process ontology might want to look at Dynamic Realism - Uncovering the Reality of Becoming through Phenomenology and Process Philosophy, by Tina Röck (Edinburgh UP 2022). We share a lot, but there are interesting differences - she relies a lot on Husserl, quite surprisingly!
Reposted by Rein Raud
A common myth used by many pundits is that Russia is somehow invincible. It is not. Losses in Russo-Japanese war, World War I and Soviet-Afghan war led also to regime change. Ukraine must be supported so that imperialist Russia collapses. euromaidanpress.com/2025/01/08/i...
January 10, 2025 at 6:42 AM
A common myth used by many pundits is that Russia is somehow invincible. It is not. Losses in Russo-Japanese war, World War I and Soviet-Afghan war led also to regime change. Ukraine must be supported so that imperialist Russia collapses. euromaidanpress.com/2025/01/08/i...
Reposted by Rein Raud
There's no fuzz on the lesson we must take from the ascension of Donald Trump and Elon Musk in U.S. politics: when you fail to equitably apply the rule of law to all persons regardless of their wealth or connections, you create a class of criminal as shameless and pathological as they are dangerous.
January 3, 2025 at 4:15 AM
There's no fuzz on the lesson we must take from the ascension of Donald Trump and Elon Musk in U.S. politics: when you fail to equitably apply the rule of law to all persons regardless of their wealth or connections, you create a class of criminal as shameless and pathological as they are dangerous.
I almost managed to get through this year without publishing anything. Almost. Just a moment ago, I got the notice that my "Selfhood and Individuality in Dōgen’s Thought" is now out (open access). A nice present!
A happy turn of the year to you too!
www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16...
A happy turn of the year to you too!
www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16...
Selfhood and Individuality in Dōgen’s Thought
The article addresses one of the central issues of Buddhist thought, the status of selfhood and individuality, as they are discussed in the work of the Japanese Zen thinker Dōgen (1200–1253). It discu...
www.mdpi.com
December 31, 2024 at 9:43 AM
I almost managed to get through this year without publishing anything. Almost. Just a moment ago, I got the notice that my "Selfhood and Individuality in Dōgen’s Thought" is now out (open access). A nice present!
A happy turn of the year to you too!
www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16...
A happy turn of the year to you too!
www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16...
Reposted by Rein Raud
This is what's so baffling about so many suggestions for AI in the humanities classroom: they mistake the product for the point. Writing outlines and essays is important not because you need to make outlines and essays but because that's how you learn to think with/through complex ideas.
I'm sure many have said this before but I'm reading a student-facing document about how students might use AI in the classroom (if allowed) and one of the recs is: use AI to make an outline of your reading! But ISN'T MAKING THE OUTLINE how one actually learns?
December 11, 2024 at 10:43 PM
This is what's so baffling about so many suggestions for AI in the humanities classroom: they mistake the product for the point. Writing outlines and essays is important not because you need to make outlines and essays but because that's how you learn to think with/through complex ideas.
…unlike, you know, the other bearded old man?
Primary school children left in tears after vicar tells them ‘Santa isn’t real’
Primary school children left in tears after vicar tells them ‘Santa isn’t real’
Rev Dr Paul Chamberlain apologises for talk at Hampshire school after angry parents said he ‘ruined Christmas’
Breaking the illusion that Santa is not real is a parental ritual usually handled with painstaking care.
For students at a primary school in…
www.theguardian.com
December 18, 2024 at 6:41 AM
…unlike, you know, the other bearded old man?
The whole thread about neural AI networks is interesting, but this is something exceptional (also what I have suspected for quite some time).
Some people have even proposed that this is inevitable, not because networks are overfitting to the data distribution, but because all networks will at some point, given enough data & enough parametric flexibility, approximate the true underlying function of the world. 14/n arxiv.org/abs/2405.07987
The Platonic Representation Hypothesis
We argue that representations in AI models, particularly deep networks, are converging. First, we survey many examples of convergence in the literature: over time and across multiple domains, the ways...
arxiv.org
December 18, 2024 at 5:42 AM
The whole thread about neural AI networks is interesting, but this is something exceptional (also what I have suspected for quite some time).
Asking for advice: I hope to be teaching a seminar on the philosophy of mental health this spring term and I already have a rather nice list of texts for my syllabus (in the first comment), but I am likely to be missing some imporant names. Please point them out to me.
December 1, 2024 at 4:12 AM
Asking for advice: I hope to be teaching a seminar on the philosophy of mental health this spring term and I already have a rather nice list of texts for my syllabus (in the first comment), but I am likely to be missing some imporant names. Please point them out to me.
Misinformation spreads more quickly when it provokes moral outrage, and readers are less likely to fact-check as well.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Misinformation exploits outrage to spread online
We tested a hypothesis that misinformation exploits outrage to spread online, examining generalizability across multiple platforms, time periods, and classifications of misinformation. Outrage is high...
www.science.org
November 29, 2024 at 12:48 PM
Misinformation spreads more quickly when it provokes moral outrage, and readers are less likely to fact-check as well.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
An exercise in conceptual analysis: find the contradiction in the following statement by the founders of the “American Academy”, planned to become the leading US university:
“It will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed—none of that's going to be allowed.”
“It will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed—none of that's going to be allowed.”
The plan: replace accreditation & “take the billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments… to endow a new institution called the American Academy.”
FYI #AcademicSky
www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/age...
FYI #AcademicSky
www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/age...
Agenda47: The American Academy | Donald J. Trump For President 2024
President Trump announces a plan to revolutionize higher education by shifting excessively large endowments from private universities toward a new institution called the American Academy.
www.donaldjtrump.com
November 25, 2024 at 2:42 PM
An exercise in conceptual analysis: find the contradiction in the following statement by the founders of the “American Academy”, planned to become the leading US university:
“It will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed—none of that's going to be allowed.”
“It will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed—none of that's going to be allowed.”