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Chance and Causality: Of Crows, Palm Trees, God and Salvation

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Abstract

This paper was written for a workshop, Chance and Contingency in Indian Philosophy, that was held at Yale University in May 2017. It examines the role that chance plays by focusing on the popular maxim of the crow and the palm tree. It argues that while representatives of different schools of thought were aware of the possibility of purely random occurrences, they dealt with it very differently. For some like the Vedāntins chance provided proof of their positions, while for others, Naiyāyikas and Buddhists, chance was a challenge, particularly to their theories of inference.

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  1. Department of Religious Studies, Yale University, 451 College St, P. O. Box 208287, New Haven, CT, 06520-8287, USA

    Phyllis Granoff

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  1. Phyllis Granoff
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Correspondence to Phyllis Granoff.

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Granoff, P. Chance and Causality: Of Crows, Palm Trees, God and Salvation. J Indian Philos 46, 399–418 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-018-9355-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-018-9355-5

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