%0 Journal Article %T Hume e as bases cient¨ªficas da tese de que n o h¨¢ acaso no mundo %A Silvio Seno Chibeni %J Principia : an International Journal of Epistemology %D 2012 %I Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brasil %X Both in the Treatise of Human Nature and in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Hume defends that ¡°there is no chance in the world¡±, and that ¡°what the vulgar call chance is nothing but a secret and conceal¡¯d cause¡±. This view plays a crucial role in Hume¡¯s influential analysis of free will and moral responsibility. It functions also as a central presupposition in his discussion of miracles. However, Hume himself argued convincingly that the ¡°maxim of causality¡±, according to which ¡°whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of existence¡± cannot be established a priori, by either intuition or demonstration. He concludes, then, that such ¡°opinion must necessarily arise from observation and experience¡±. In the present article I analyse this latter statement, showing, first, what was Hume detailed proposal for funding the principle of causality on experience. Given the apparent weakness of this proposal, I then speculate on what kind of firmer empirical foundation could, instead, have been given, in Hume¡¯s time, to the principle of causality, namely, the indirect support offered by Newtonian mechanics. Finally, I show how this theoretical link between experience and the principle, and also Hume¡¯s straightforward, inductive argument, were undermined by the inception of quantum physics, at the beginning of the 20th century. %K Hume %K causality %K chance %K determinism %K Newtonian mechanics %K quantum mechanics. %U http://www.periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/principia/article/view/1808-1711.2012v16n2p229/24094