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Custom then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past. (Hume, David S. "Concerning Human Understanding" Section V, Part I, 36)
The integrated unity can not be the starting point, because there can be no starting point in the empirical method except reflection itself and reflection is contingent upon the value and meaning each individual gives it in the current historical time. Dewey, in essence, is using integrated unity as a selective emphasis "as if it were primary, as if it were the original 'given'" (Dewey, P. 9). However, it can only be the primary if it is the first time anyone has had that experience, and that is not likely.
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