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The Crow and the Coconut: Accident, Coincidence, and Causation in the Yogavāsiṣṭha
- Philosophy East and West
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 56, Number 3, July 2006
- pp. 392-408
- 10.1353/pew.2006.0032
- Article
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This article explores the way in which the Yogavāsis t ha's account of causation as coincidence relates to its soteriological agenda and the view that the 'existence' of the world—deemed to be an illusion anyway—is a mere accident. Comparison is made to similar ideas about causality articulated by David Hume, who nonetheless stops short of drawing quite such radical metaphysical conclusions, in spite of his epistemological skepticism concerning the existence of external objects.