Peircian semiotics is based around Peirce's distinction between three ways of being --- Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness. For Peirce, these three irreducible categories constitute both the different kinds of human thought and, more generally, the planes of reality. Thus, Peirce's ways of being are pre-semiotic. The distinction between these three realms permeates Peirce's entire semiotic theory, underlying all other distinctions within the system.
Firstness is the realm of mere possibilities and qualities, prior to their embodiment in actually existing objects. The realm of Firstness signifies the possibility for qualities to be realized in the physical world, yet it contains these mere possibilities as pure predicates. In this way, Firstness implies a purely qualitative state of being, apart from the quantitative being of actual objects. As Peirce himself puts it, "possibility, the mode of being of Firstness, is the embryo of being. It is not nothing. It is not existence." Because Firstness simply implies the pure potential for some quality to be instantiated in a real object, regardless of anything else, it only involves singulars. In the realm of Firstness, entities do not stand in relation to anything else; they are positive and absolute.
An example of Firstness used by Peirce is the quality of redness. Pure redness, a single shade that is not in contrast to any other colors, is a mere possibility. One cannot directly experience the quality itself; instead, it can only be experienced indirectly, as embodied in some actually-occurring object, such as a red flower. The quality of redness is positively and absolutely what it is in itself; it is not relative to any other quality or object. Contrast this with the concept of red, which exists within the realm of Thirdness. The concept /red/ is the category (a law/convention) including all colors we would identify as red. It stands in relation to the others colors in the spectrum, such as /purple/, /orange/, /blue/ and /green/, and therefore is defined negatively as well as positively. The quality {redness} is a singular experience of a particular color, without any relation to other shades of red or other colors in the spectrum. Therefore, unlike /red/, {redness} is simply positive and absolute in itself.
Secondness is the realm that is the most easily understood, because it represents all entities that can be directly experienced through human senses. Secondness is comprised of all actually existing, physical, individual objects in the world (anything 'real') - all things that exist spatially and temporally. Anything that can be seen, touched, smelled, tasted, or heard is necessarily a Secondness. In this way, Secondness is the realm of Reaction and requires a dyadic relationship. Peirce states, "we talk of hard facts. That hardness, that compulsiveness of experience, is Secondness." Now, that object may also be an instantiation of a Thirdness, but whether this is the case or not is irrelevant to the object's existence as a Second. Objects within the realms of both Firstness and Thirdness can only be experienced through their embodiments within Secondness. Entities of Secondness always embody some entities of Firstness, but are not necessarily instantiations of some Thirdness.
Examples of such entities are easy to come by. Each individual word on this page is an example of Secondness, since they are each singular, actually-existing, physical things (they are made out of ink, printed on a piece of paper, and can be seen). The fact that each word, such as [the], is meaningful because it is a token of a type, such as /the/, is irrelevant to the word's membership in Secondness. An individual scribble on the page would equally be a member of Secondness. Each time any of these words is spoken aloud is also an example of Secondness, as the sound waves themselves are actually-existing, physical entities. Every other entity in the world that could be directly experienced in some way exists in the realm of Secondness.
Thirdness is the realm of habit and law, in which relations between actually-existing things exist. It necessarily involves a triadic relationship, in which 'one thing brings about a Secondness between two things." This third entity plays the role of a medium between physical entities. Thus, Thirdness is the realm of representation; the triadic relationships of Thirdness are necessary for the process of representation. This mediation provided by Thirdness allows for the organization of Secondnesses into general facts or laws, which can then be future facts. The general character created in Thirdness then allows relations between Secondnesses to project into the past and future. According to Peirce, thought must always play a part in Thirdness, as it involves the interpretation of entities in the realm of Secondness, forming generalizations, habits, and concepts. Thirdness, like Firstness, cannot be directly experienced out in the world; the only way one can encounter Thirdness is indirectly, through the Secondnesses that compose it.
A word, abstracted away from any individual instantiation of its use, is a member of Thirdness, since it acts as a law, or category, grouping together all of its instantiations. For example, the word /cat/, as a law, groups together every individual instantiation of those particular sounds or letters, as in [cat], so that each instantiation refers to the same thing. Similarly, the concept /cat/ is a habit that groups together every actual cat in the world and identifies them as the same. Any other such category is similarly part of Thirdness, as a habit that organizes entities of Secondness.
Peirce, Charles Sanders. The Essential Peirce, vol 2. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/dictionary.html
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