Legge e caso alle origini della fisica contemporanea

The European culture at the turn of the century developed a deep criticism of the concept of “natural laws”. In the meantime, the new concept of “statistical law” was found to be useful and fruitful. The paper proposes a review of the positions on this issue of the physicists and philosophers like Boltzmann, Planck, Manthuer, trying to find the root of their different conceptions in the history of the European culture.