Charles Sanders
Peirce--Letters to Lady Welby
1) Firstness--"the mode of being of that which is
such as it is, positively and without reference to anything in
itself." This is analogous to the Kantian notion of the ding
an sich;
2) Secondness--"the mode of being of that which is
such as it is, with respect to a second but regardless of any
third." This can be described as the representation, or vorstellung,
that is made by the perceiving subject of the object-in-itself,
or the ding an sich; and
3) Thirdness--"the mode of being of that which is
such as it is, in bringing a second and third in relation to
each other." This is the relationship between the object,
and the concept of the object; that relationship is expressed as
a sign.
For Peirce,
"the highest grade of reality is only reached by
signs." In this way, he anticipates--or at least is
contemporary with--Saussure's semiotics. Peirce's classification
of signs--what he calls "Ideoscopy"--breaks down into
three categories: 1) Firstness--"the mode of being of that
which is such as it is, positively and without reference to
anything in itself." This is analogous to the Kantian
notion of the ding an sich; 2) Secondness--"the mode
of being of that which is such as it is, with respect to a
second but regardless of any third." This can be described
as the representation, or vorstellung, that is made by
the perceiving subject of the object-in-itself, or the ding
an sich; and 3) Thirdness--"the mode of being of that
which is such as it is, in bringing a second and third in
relation to each other." This is the relationship between
the object, and the concept of the object; that relationship is
expressed as a sign. "A sign is . . . an object which is in
relation to its object on the one hand and to an interpretant on
the other in such a way as to bring the interpretant into a
relation to the object corresponding to its own relation to the
object."
When we survey
the sensuous manifold we segregate and organize sensuous
information. How do we do this? What do we do that enables us to
know? These are the questions of the relations between Firstness,
Secondness, and Thirdness. The first awareness of a thing
separated--by our perception--from the sensuous manifold, that
awareness is a Firstness. Next comes a "resistance,"
or an interruption of the initial awareness. This interruption,
which calls us to an awareness of the state of our awareness, is
a Secondness. Thirdness is the relationship between Firstness
and Secondness; it is a relationship of linguistic signs.
Expression--verbal, written, or otherwise--of the awareness of
awareness which is the Secondness of Firstness, is Thirdness. |
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