Hence we must admit that the relation [‘north of’], like the terms it relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create.
— “Bertrand Russell”

Crucial point. This is something that almost nobody gets. The way thought operates constantly relies on such judgements, that are not dependent on a particular mind, but only perceptible by a mind. They are rational relations and the basis for inference and judgement, and are real, but not physical, in that they’re prior to judgement. — Wayfarer

I haven't come across this until now; wouldn't "A to the north of B" enable us to claim that "B is to the south of A" but we are not allowed to claim that "B is not to the south of A" and so the proposition is made explicit by this conceptual connection. I am not entirely sure if there is a distinctness between the two propositions where it is apparently independent of the mind because they do not syntactically differ or are co-referential. It is a prori knowledge.

Aristotle does in fact use the expressions “prime matter” (prôtê hulê) and “primary underlying thing” (prôton hupokeimenon) several times — Mitchell

Thanks. So you are thinking "hupokeimenon" here makes a further distinction in regard to substantial being? Or is hyle not meant to distinguish matter - as the ultimately unformed - from hupokeimenon in fact?

Prime matter is normally mentioned in contrast to a prime mover, isn't it? So in that context, it would be more generic than "prime substance" as it is matter and form that give you a substance.

However a prime substance could be read as a claim that the hylomorphic condition is what is most primal. The underlying substratum is that which already underwrites both material cause and formal cause in a most primitive sense.

I could get behind either reading to an extent. Though as I argue, neither completely works. You need Peirce's triadic metaphysics which starts with a primal potential - something that is neither yet material, nor formal, yet already the possibility for that hylomorphic combo to arise.

En-mattering requires in-forming. And in-forming requires en-mattering. And all that exists at the start is this mutuality, this dependent co-arising, as a potential.

The other obvious key difference is the Peircean view is based on form as constraint. So Aristotle still frames the issue as having to drill down to a substance than can underlie all construction. That was my point about him being focused on an actuality that can have potentials predicated of it.

It is presumed that for something to persist through all change, some quantity of that thing must be conserved through the whole history of the Cosmos. You don't get something for nothing. The Cosmos has a substance conservation principle.

But like Anaximander, Peirce is taken an open systems view. The Cosmos is formed by "pinching off" some quantity of substance in become semiotically closed by its particular sign system. Like an organism, or a dissipative structure, it sits in an infinite bath of potential, and then forms a structure that can feed off an inexhaustible supply that flows through it.

So again - as I remarked about material instability being regulated by stable information - the paradigm has to be flipped on its head. The substrate that persists through the material changes is in fact primarily the formal one of the emergent constraints.

Matter doesn't play the role of the stable unchanging stuff which gets reworked into multiple forms. Instead, it is the raw and unlimited action that gets constrained by some kind of global organisation of closure. Substance gets its "materiality" by prime matter or raw potential become trapped into certain restricted "habits". Finitude is what finality - final and formal cause - imposes on infinitely unbounded fluctuation.

Russell wrote:

Consider such a proposition as "Edinburgh is north of London." Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems plain that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge of it. When we come to know that Edinburgh is north of London, we come to know something which has to do only with Edinburgh and London: we do not cause the truth of the proposition by coming to know it, on the contrary we merely apprehend a fact which was there before we knew it.

The truth of the proposition is not caused by our coming to know it. I agree. It was caused by agreement regarding cardinal directions, the establishment of cities, and other meaningful creations of humans. Cardinal directions require thought and belief, for they are existentially contingent upon it. They are a product of it. This is clearly proven by the fact(state of affairs) that other cultures have/had no such conception prior to becoming European colonies. For example, Hawai'ians use the notions of mauka and makai. The former means "mountain" and the latter "ocean". Mauka side of a building is the side closest to the mountain, and vice-versa. So, depending upon where one is at on the island, mauka could be north. but it could also be south. Those terms acquired their meaning is precisely the same manner, by virtue of the same means, as the term of cardinal direction.

Russell claims here that we apprehend a fact which was there before we knew it. If the fact is that "Edinburgh is north of London" then that fact is wholly dependent upon thought and belief for it;s very existence. Without thought and belief, there is no London, there is no Edinburgh, there is no such thing as cardinal directions, and therefore without thought and belief there can be no relation of cardinal directions between the two cities.

Russell is employing the term "fact" to mean a true statement and/or proposition.

Russell wrote:

The part of the earth's surface where Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands, even if there were no human being to know about north and south, and even if there were no minds at all in the universe. This is, of course, denied by many philosophers, either for Berkeley's reasons or for Kant's.

Or Merrill's reasons. It stands contrary to facts(states of affairs), as clearly argued above.

Russell wrote:

We may therefore now assume it to be true that nothing mental is presupposed in the fact that Edinburgh is north of London. But this fact involves the relation "north of," which is a universal; and it would be impossible for the whole fact to involve nothing mental if the relation "north of," which is a constituent part of the fact, did involve anything mental. Hence we must admit that the relation, like the terms it relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create.

Nothing mental is presupposed in the true statement, or proposition that "Edinburgh is north of London"?

There goes a bit of the confidence I once had in Russell. X-)

I clearly disagree with this aspect of his metaphysics. As earlier, I think I'm just rejecting his taxonomy, the use of "fact" in particular. However, he is of an era which had thought and belief all wrong as well, so...

The truth of the proposition is not caused by our coming to know it. I agree. It was caused by agreement regarding cardinal directions, the establishment of cities, and other meaningful creations of humans. — creativesoul

Not sure if it's the truth of the proposition that's "caused by agreement". I think it's the possibility of the truth of the proposition that's caused by agreement, i.e. the agreement creates a thing to say yes or no about, to be true or false about, or rather a question for nature to answer "yes" or "no" to, upon interrogation.

The meaningful element that we interpose, the cardinal directions, etc., creates the possibility for something to be true or false, or a standard in terms of which things can be measured, etc.

In this way, universals contain an element of both the internal and external. The thing that comes from us is the logical possibility (a way things could be), but then it's Nature that goes its own way and provides examples of things that either have that nature and logic - or don't.

If we don't find the thing to be like we imagine it to be, we dust ourselves off and move on - either alter the logical construct, or look harder, check whether we made a mistake, etc., or even reinterpret the evidence if we really want to stick to our posit.

It's simplest if we just think of things as indeed having some nature, and us not knowing that nature in advance, but positing natures, positing structures for things; yet if the thing has that structure, then it really has that structure. It's not like our saying anything earmarks any particular structure for an object of experience coming down the pipe, but if it has a structure, it really has that structure, that nature.

Not sure if it's the truth of the proposition that's "caused by agreement". I think it's the possibility of the truth of the proposition that's caused by agreement, i.e. the agreement creates a thing to say yes or no about, to be true or false about, or rather a question for nature to answer "yes" or "no" to, upon interrogation.

The meaningful element that we interpose, the cardinal directions, etc., creates the possibility for something to be true or false, or a standard in terms of which things can be measured, etc. — gurugeorge

I see nothing objectionable here, guru. We seem to agree. That's no fun. X-)

So, on topic...

Russell argued for the idea that the cardinal direction "north of" was a universal. The place on the globe where Edinburgh stands is and was north of London prior to our talking in terms of cardinal directions.

This is a bit tricky to clearly parse, isn't it?

I would be willing to state that the place on the globe where Edinburgh stands was spatiotemporally distinct from the place where London stands prior to thought and belief, but it cannot be said to have always been north of London if being north of anything is existentially contingent upon thought and belief.

Do we become aware that Edinburgh is north of London? Surely, if we were born after both cities and cardinal directions were established... clearly we do. We become aware of how to appropriately talk about the spatial relations between the two cities.

Did those who first agreed upon the cardinal terms become aware that Edinburgh is north of London? Well, if the inventor(s) of cardinal directions coined the terms prior to the establishment of both cities, then they certainly could not become aware that Edinburgh is/was north of London, for there was nothing to be north of something else. If cardinal direction terminology was invented and in use prior to the establishment of the two cities, and those who established the cities did not know cardinal directions, then they could possibly become aware that they had established the cities in such a relation. If cardinal directions came after the establishment of the two cities, then we invented a way to talk about the locations in spatial terms. That is most certainly not discovering that Edinburgh is north of london.

On the other hand, if the place on the globe where Edinburgh stands is closer to the north pole than the place where London is, then that would be the case independently of thought and belief. While the name north pole is wholly contingent upon thought and belief, the place on the globe referred to by the name is not. The same holds good of the two cities. So...

The place on the globe where the two cities stand is not contingent upon thought and belief. Thus, the spatiotemporal relationship that those two places have with one another and the north pole is not existentially contingent upon thought and belief.

Becoming aware of that relationship most certainly is, however, for it is contingent upon language which is, in turn, contingent upon thought and belief. So, in closing this aspect of my own considerations regarding Russell's notion of "north of" being a universal; the terms themselves are existentially contingent upon thought and belief, but what the terms set out is not. There is indeed a spatiotemporal relationship between the three places on the globe. There are actually several. We privilege the one.

And the "prime problem" is that Aristotle was focused on how actuality creates potentiality, rather than the more truly foundational issue of how potentiality creates actuality. — apokrisis

The thing is, Aristotle demonstrated that actuality is necessarily prior to potentiality. Potentiality will not produce anything actual unless it is acted on. So this act which acts on potentiality to produce something actuality must be prior to potentiality. That's why Aristotle focused on how actuality creates potentiality, because the inverse, how potentiality creates actuality is an impossibility. Potentiality cannot create anything unless it is acted on.

So you keep repeating. But didn’t Aristotle leave some room for the accidental? - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_(philosophy)

Just consider action and direction to be accidental properties of potentiality. They might get actualised as a bare contextless fluctuation, but it ain’t a necessity. However having happened accidentality and set off some reactions, then the regularity of a habit might well develop. Necessity might make its belated entrance on the scene.

On my own view, being universal requires being the single common denominator that a group of things all have in common, aside from all having the same name(pace Witt's "game"). For example, thought and belief about acceptable and/or unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour is the germane commonality that all morality and ethical discourse have in common. It is universal for it is the case regardless of individual particulars. Saying that "Moral and/or ethical discourse is about what's considered to be acceptable and/or unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour" is to make a claim that is true of all moral/ethical discourse. Being about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and behaviour is precisely what makes moral/ethical discourse what it is.

Here, we can come to discover this by virtue of comparing all the known moralities and moral discourse. So, this presents us with an odd set of conditions. Morality is contingent upon thought and belief. Moral/ethical talk is contingent upon thought and belief. Acquiring knowledge of what all moral/ethical discourse has in common is also contingent upon thought and belief. However, we can get that wrong by virtue of not paying attention to the right sorts of things. They have more important things in common aside from just being called 'moral/ethical discourse'.

Things that are existentially contingent upon thought and belief can still be gotten wrong(what all moral/ethical discourse has in common). Thus, it does not follow from the fact that something is existentially contingent upon thought and belief that we cannot get it wrong in rather important ways, aside from misuse of language.

Being sensible is not equivalent to being true. The former is about meaning and as such it is wholly established by our thought and belief. The latter is correspondence with fact(states of affairs, events, happenings, the case at hand, the way things are/were, etc.), which requires meaning and as such is existentially contingent upon thought and belief, but is not necessarily determined by it.

As it pertains to the topic. Earlier I asked...

Can we further assess the different senses of universal in a sort of comparative/contrast way? Can we be wrong, not in the sense of using the word incorrectly, but can we both - use the word sensibly and say false things about universals?

Is that even a productive way to put things? Is there a better way?

Not unless I get a brain tumour or something. 8-) — apokrisis

Well there’s always Jill Bolte Taylor......

In a way, it's funny (to me) that you have both Plato and Kant as favorite philosophers, because in many ways, they are opposed to each other. — Agustino

There are divergences. Kant did a dissertation on the Ideal Forms in his early days, but changed his view later. But arguably they became internalised in Kant as forms of understanding. I'm still looking into it. (There's an Egyptian philosophy blogger, D S Kashaba, that I have discovered who is totally into all this, I'm reading his articles.) But overall whilst Kant had his differences with Plato, he was still very much in the Platonic tradition. Aristotle and Kant are both Platonists! (And Lloyd Gerson would say so.)

There we go, this is a realist position and is opposed to the Kantian. — Agustino

Not so - only perceptible by a mind, a rational intelligence, that is capable of understanding 'north'. Hey, cows graze facing north, but try explaining that to a cow. They do it without thinking about it (and science doesn't know how!)

Newtonian physics was reductionist in being a realist physics based on just observables — apokrisis

Except that for Newton, physics was never going to be a complete account. He believed that the Universe was actually held together by God (now 'dark matter' ;-) )

It is a priori knowledge. — TimeLine

You're right. Everyone is very blasé about a priori knowledge, as if we understand what that means; but I think this example calls attention to what Kant designated the 'primary intuition of space'. The 'synthetic a priori' is key here.

There are divergences. Kant did a dissertation on the Ideal Forms in his early days, but changed his view later. But arguably they became internalised in Kant as forms of understanding. — Wayfarer

Right, I agree that they are internalised in Kant, but that's precisely the problem. If they are internalised, then they are mind (understanding) dependent - they are of subjective origin. This is precisely what allows Kant to call space, time, causality, etc. as transcendentally ideal, as opposed to transcendentally real.

Not so - only perceptible by a mind, a rational intelligence, that is capable of understanding 'north'. — Wayfarer

In Kant's terminology understanding and reason aren't the same. Kant's point is that the understanding gives (or creates if you want) the forms. So perception itself is fashioned by the understanding according to Kant. Understanding + sense impressions = phenomenon. So it's not that the understanding understands forms that are out there in the objects. But rather it creates the very objects that are objectively given in the phenomenon.

They do it without thinking about it (and science doesn't know how!) — Wayfarer

Sure, but presumably (we can't know for sure the subjective experience of a cow though), cows also have spatial perception. In order to have any kind of spatial experience, the understanding must supply the form of space according to Kant (refer to the transcendental aesthetic). Cows may lack conceptual ability, but this isn't to say they lack the forms. One can drink water without having the concept of drinking water. And one can perceive in space (ie their understanding provides the form of space), without being able to think about it.

Morality is contingent upon thought and belief. — creativesoul

You think? I did Landmark Education, one of their lessons is called ‘chocolate or vanilla’. It’s the way things come at you from a completely unexpected angle. Life throws stuff at you. Shit, as they say, happens, and you often don’t have a lot of time to think. And I think that’s where you learn character. You will see people on the news - ‘hey, I didn’t think, I just acted’ - and sometimes that’s positive, like ‘bystander rescues trapped driver from burning vehicle’, and other times it’s negative ‘I saw the money on the table and I just grabbed it’. Morality is what it is that determines which of those impulses wins out

.

I agree that they are internalised in Kant, but that's precisely the problem. If they are internalised, then they are mind (understanding) dependent - they are of subjective origin — Agustino

That is mistaken. They’re not ‘subjective’ in the sense of ‘pertaining only to myself’.

Understanding + sense impressions = phenomenon. — Agustino

Strike two. ‘Percepts without concepts are blind’.

Cows may lack conceptual ability, but this isn't to say they lack the forms — Agustino

Strike three.

That is mistaken. They’re not ‘subjective’ in the sense of ‘pertaining only to myself’. — Wayfarer

Ummmm. No, they are subjective and they pertain to whatever creatures experience things in space. I never meant by subjective that they pertain only to yourself - Kant was quite clear that the forms are universals and necessary - nothing can be imagined without them, and everything presupposes their existence (from your point of view at least).

Strike two. ‘Percepts without concepts are blind’. — Wayfarer

You are not following closely what I've been saying. Your understanding can have the form of space (which you can take as a concept), without you being able to analytically describe this concept, break it into its parts, derive Euclid's postulates from it, etc.

So Kant's point is that sense impressions without the understanding cannot be experienced in any way - they are blind, since it is the understanding that provides the form and organisation through which they are understood. And inversely, the understanding without sense impressions is empty, since it has no content to apply itself to.

Strike three. — Wayfarer

Nope - what I meant by conceptual ability was ability to linguistically break things down into their component parts and perform operations with them. Cows do lack the latter part for sure, though very likely they do NOT lack the understanding that assembles experience through the forms of space, time, causality, etc.

In other words, cows don't lack the ability of synthesis - they lack the ability of analysis.

Kant's point is to centre human knowledge back to human experiences. If we are affected by something, a phenomena, it is necessarily knowable to us, for it takes the conceptual form explicable in terms of us-- "North" is indexed to our spatial world, "space" refers to an expression of the states we encounter in our experiences, "time" is a manifestation of the world we understand, etc.

In the context of metaphysics and epistemology, this is a significant move (or at least if you've not already made it with someone like Spinoza or maybe even Descartes) because it removes the transcendent force from our analysis of phenomena. With respect to phenomena, there cannot be a "hidden" realm which defines it. All phenomena is necessarily explicable in the form it takes in our experience.

If we are dealing with phenomena, we can always get out of the cave (to reference Plato). We just have to find the exit (i.e. understanding of the relevant form).

Here "subjectivity" doesn't mean "personal opinion" or "lack or objectivity." It just means that phenomena are "of the subjective" (i.e. given and explicable in experiences), rather than being of a different realm defined outside the context of what might be available to experiences.

Strike two. ‘Percepts without concepts are blind’. — Wayfarer

Kant is making exactly his point in noting the subjective nature of phenomena. If our percepts didn't access the objective knowledge of logical forms, we couldn't possibly understand any percept. Unless our experiences are a percept of understanding a logical form, we couldn't really be aware of anything.

In fact, we have grounds to say we couldn't experience anything at all, for even the most basic observations of phenomena (e.g. "What is THAT?", an instinctual attention to something that moved,etc. ) involve conceptual form.

The forms of phenomena must be a construction of experience, insofar as our experiences are concerned. Our experiences are us, not anything we might be looking at. We always have to do the work. The presence of something is never sufficient to amount to its presence in experience.

Morality is contingent upon thought and belief.
— creativesoul

You think? I did Landmark Education, one of their lessons is called ‘chocolate or vanilla’. It’s the way things come at you from a completely unexpected angle. Life throws stuff at you. Shit, as they say, happens, and you often don’t have a lot of time to think. And I think that’s where you learn character. You will see people on the news - ‘hey, I didn’t think, I just acted’ - and sometimes that’s positive, like ‘bystander rescues trapped driver from burning vehicle’, and other times it’s negative ‘I saw the money on the table and I just grabbed it’. Morality is what it is that determines which of those impulses wins out — Wayfarer

Yup. I do think. I see nothing here that contradicts what I think either. I'm puzzled by how this qualifies by your lights, as being an appropriate reply. Relevance?

So then, we could take the position that being a universal is determined by how the word is being used. — creativesoul

I don't think so unless I misunderstand you. Aristotle's point is that what is being talked about when the word 'man' is used is what select individuals (i.e., men) have in common. Even if the word 'man' was never defined or used, that commonality would be still be there.

Can we be wrong, not in the sense of using the word incorrectly, but can we both - use the word sensibly and say false things about universals? — creativesoul

Yes. One could mistakenly say that 'Callias' is a universal or that 'man' is just a name (per nominalism).

Aristotle and Kant are both Platonists! — Wayfarer

That Aristotle is a kind of Platonist isn't very much in doubt. However, saying that Kant is a Platonist is very much different. In what sense is he a Platonist?

The only senses in which I can see Kant being a Platonist is in thinking that:

• The forms are prior to experience, and make experience possible.
• Intelligible qualities (concepts) are prior to sensible qualities (sense impressions).
• Appearances have an underlying unity which is prior to difference (unity underlies difference).

But Kant very much disagrees with Plato/Aristotle on:

• The speculative capacity of reason to go beyond the bounds of experience.
• The centrality, availability (to Reason) and explanatory power of God.
• The existence of a realm of forms or the inherence of the forms in the things themselves apart from us (realism).
• The independent existence of things apart from the (transcendental) subject.
• Certainty being of objective origin (our view matching reality) versus subjective origin (spatial judgements are certain because they make reference to the form of space which is subjectively given)
• Experience is a given - a gift - as opposed to a construct of the mind.
• The origin of the forms as both internal and external to us.
• There is one underlying reality behind appearances - and that's what gives coherence to the appearances.

So where exactly did Aristotle spell out an argument for prime substance? — apokrisis

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I regard prime matter and prime mover as Platonist remnants of Aristotle's view that were inconsistent with his own hylomorphism (which is the position that everything that exists, i.e., substances, are inseparably matter and form).

My claim is that Aristotle's cosmological argument actually implies a hylomorphic first cause which I described as "prime substance" (my coined term here, not Aristotle's).

Did you mean something like an Apeiron? — apokrisis

Yes, but hylomorphic.

I agree that nothing comes from nothing, but also it can't be the case that immanent being is an efficient/material tale of how something comes from something. That way lies only infinite regress. — apokrisis

That's true if it were a linear series where it's turtles all the way down. But the universe doesn't generate substances outside itself, but within itself as structure emerges and evolves.

So the first substantial act or occurence would be the least possible state of being in terms of being en-mattered and in-formed - some kind of spontaneous fluctuation. — apokrisis

Agreed. The logical point here is that it is substances that are the locus of action, not matter or form.

From your later post:

So finality, or the prime mover, is placed where it should be, at the other end of existence's journey. The Cosmos has to grow into its Being, even if - through mathematics - we can understand that Being to have retrospective necessity. — apokrisis

Yes, though just as I would question pure matter at the beginning, I would also question pure form at the end. However...

If the beginning was a symmetry, then only certain ways of breaking that symmetry were ever possible. And so the form of the Cosmos can be regarded as latent in prime matter. It could be considered "prime substance" on that ground. — apokrisis

Exactly. So semantics aside, the Peircean view and the Aristotelian view may not be far apart, particularly as Aristotle considered the prime mover to be a final cause, not an efficient cause.

I would also question pure form at the end. — Andrew M

Thanks for clariflying. And here I would clarify that I only mean that the form would be expressed in its most definite fashion at the end. It would become clear to see in the substantial end state of development.

Thanks, Agustino - very good points, and very succinctly expressed. I will think some more about them.

I'm puzzled by how this qualifies by your lights, as being an appropriate reply. Relevance? — creativesoul

I was musing on the extent to which morality is dependent on thought and belief, rather than vice versa - that was all.

Just consider action and direction to be accidental properties of potentiality. — apokrisis

I don't see how action and direction could be other than universals, and therefore they cannot be accidentals. Each of these is a relative term, referring to relations between things. And relations are described in no way other than through the use of universals.

Accidentals are the properties of particulars. So action and direction cannot be accidentals because what these words refer to is relations between particulars, which are described by universals, they do not refer to properties of particulars.

Essential attributes and accidental attibutes are both properties, and properties are universals. (I think.)

I think, that by definition, accidentals cannot enter into the universal. If the accidentals are part of the description, then the description is a description of a particular, and not a universal. That is what separates the particular from the universal, the accidentals.

Remember that I was talking about a contextless fluctuation. So it is the fluctuation that is an action in a direction. And these would count as the accidents predicated of the potential.

[EDIT] Also note that following the logic of vagueness - "that to which the PNC fails to apply" - the accidental vs the necessary becomes a moot distinction when talking about the potential itself. As complementary generalities, they themselves are only actual once stably realised in a world as contrasting limits on the nature of being.

So properly speaking, this firstness of a bare fluctuation is neither really an accident nor an essence during its first moment of happening. But retrospectively, as a stable world develops as a result, it can be seen to be more of an accident than anything else - given the apparent lack of a context to have been "its cause".

This is the difference again between reasoning about the general with the logic of particulars vs reasoning with a metaphysical logic that is rooted in a fully triadic view - one that dialectically derives the particular and the general from the vague.

Aren't there more than one accepted use of the term universal?

If what you say is accurate, then Aristotle does not use it in the same way as a nominalist would. To Aristotle, assuming what you claim is an accurate report, being a man doesn't require language. I would agree with that much, I think. What counts as being 'a man' does.

What's being talked about when the word 'man' is being used is determined wholly by the shared meaning of a community of language users. I disagree with Aristotle on that point.

I was musing on the extent to which morality is dependent on thought and belief, rather than vice versa - that was all. — Wayfarer

Ah, I see. It's both my friend.

Morality as a code of conduct is existentially contingent upon thought and belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and behaviour. It's codified thought and belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour

Meta-ethical considerations are thought and belief about pre-existing morality(ies). One's 'sense' of what's moral/immoral can change with meta-ethical considerations. That requires first having a 'sense' of what's moral/immoral. A 'sense' of what's moral/immoral is developed through language.

I was actually leaning more towards the origen of codes of conduct.

Essential attributes and accidental attibutes are both properties, and properties are universals. (I think.) — Mitchell

EVERYTHING in the cosmos is composed of matter and form. Everything is concrete and individual. Hence the forms of cosmic entities must also be concrete and individual. Now, the process of knowledge is immediately concerned with the separation of form (morphs) from matter (hyle), since a thing is known precisely because its form is received in the knower. But, whatever is received is in the recipient according to the mode of being that the recipient possesses. If, then, the senses are material powers, they receive the forms of objects in a material manner; and if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the forms of objects in an immaterial manner. This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.

Moreover, if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality.

From Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophical Analysis of the Nature of Man, by Robert E. Brennan, O.P.; Macmillan Co., 1941.