David Hume Week 1 Analysis

Hume: Week One Question In, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, by David Hume, “Section IV- Sceptical Doubts” and “Section V- Sceptical Solution of These Doubts”, Hume writes about the happening of things and, that experience of the past can lead to expectations of what will happen subsequently, or that one may experience something similar that has been experienced before. Then in “Section V- Sceptical Solution of These Doubts”, he wrote about the principle of custom or habit, the natural responses to things happening. Using examples from Hume’s writing, this paper will explain what custom is, what the concept of custom explains or resolves, and if not based upon reason, what role that it plays in our lives. Hume describes the concept of custom, and what it explains or further resolves. Hume describes custom to exist whenever the repetition of an act produces a natural tendency to renew that act, without being driven by any reasoning or process of the understanding (Hume, D., & Steinberg, E., 1995). Hume then describes custom to be of human nature, for example: the natural response to the heat of a flame, or the response to the chill of the cold. He asserts that after the constant conjunction of the two objects; heat and flame or weight and solidity, by custom alone we expect one from the appearance of the other …show more content…
Summary and specific examples from Hume’s writing have been provided to explain that custom is a learned behavior produced by the repetition of past acts based learned beliefs. Although custom is not based upon reasoning in the mind, it is the actions taken based upon beliefs that have been made by customary conjunctions. Those beliefs can be proven or disproven and play a role on our behavior as human