BLOG 23: Understanding Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness
Semiosis 101 - 5 minute semiotic read
To really get to grips with Peirce’s Semiosis to apply it to your existing creative practice, you really need to grasp his phenomenological thinking around the states of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. This does take some conceptual thinking on your part to appreciate the richness of Peirce’s Semiosis. Threes are important in Peirce’s pragmatic semiotic theory. This triadic thinking structures how visually communicated meaning flows from your visual representation of a concept to the
interpretation of the intended concept by the target audience. Each part of this determination flow is in turn powered triadically (see Blog 015). Firstness is the state when perception of possible meanings are semiotically triggered. Secondness is when interpretations begin to gain more probability of meaning. Thirdness is a state when interpretations form meaning in the minds of the audience.
We have all experienced a moment when we transitioned from not being aware of something (a quality of existence) to being aware of a thing. That is a moment “regardless of anything else.” The First raw level of perception that is not formed by something other than itself. As your audience perception grows and they become aware, your audience reacts to whatever they perceive.
To Peirce, this is Secondness, defined as ‘being Second to some First, regardless of anything else.’ It is a state where possibilities of meaning move toward propositions of meaning: from THIS may be THAT to THIS is probably THAT.
Finally, the state of Thirdness is the state in which perception has processed to a point where the audience can be more certain that what they perceive means THAT thing now.[1] I go into much more detail about this in my 2026 Semiotics for Designers and Illustrators book, and many Semiosis 101 episodes on YouTube and Patreon, but here is a quick overview.
In a 1903 Harvard lecture Peirce describes Firstness (the First) as ‘a Quality of Feeling,’ Secondness (the Second) as a ‘Reaction,’ and Thirdness as ‘Representation’ of elements of the phenomenon being encountered.[2] Peirce’s concept of the Second is that it is a state relative to “the conception of reaction with something else,[3] ” it is “that mode of being which lies in opposition” to another thing.[4]
What “mode of being” means in the context of visual communication is that your design’s or illustration’s aesthetic is perceived First before it can begin to be interpreted. Your illustrated or designed aesthetic remains dormant in plain sight until it hooks and retains the audience’s attention as meaning-bearing. Firstness is a Schrödinger state where audience perception of meaning is either not perceived or perceived.
Once a visual element is perceived as possibly meaning-bearing (a semiotic sign), then a Second level has begun where this thing up to a moment ago that was seen but not perceived as meaningful, now possibly has meaning. Consider all the micro visual elements you employ in your macro aesthetic. Each visual element, when composed this other visual elements has the ability to be perceived as meaningful. That is what you already do.
In Semiosis, all low semiotic power levels can be described as working within a state of Firstness e.g. Iconic representation - utilising familiarity and possibilities to trigger instant perception. Then mid power levels work within Secondness e.g. Indexical representation - utilising existent things and suggested meaning to mediate the visual communication of the intended concept. Therefore, the desired mediated meaning happens with Thirdness.
The state of Thirdness is the state in which your audience perception has processed to a point where the previous states now afford them to arrive at what is understood. If your visual language (comprising many semiotic signs) has successfully semiotically mediated what was intended, your audience will understand that when they see THIS represented in your aesthetic it means THAT intended concept.
Thirdness is the “conception of mediation, whereby a First and a Second are brought into relation.”[5] These three-fold phenomenological states inform Peirce’s semiotic sign-actions and his ten classifications of semiotic signs, which in turn aids how you make your decisions about the visual language you choose to employ. To enhance how you visually communicate what you intend, your aesthetic can be semiotically structured to facilitate this perceptual flow from Firstness to Thirdness.
[1] The Peirce Edition Project. Eds. (1998) The Essential Peirce, Volume 2: Selected Philosophical Writings (1893–1913). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p160.
[2] The Peirce Edition Project. Eds. (1998) The Essential Peirce, Volume 2: Selected Philosophical Writings (1893–1913). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p160.
[3] Peirce, C.S. (1935) The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vol. 6 Scientific Metaphysics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 6.32.
[4] Peirce, C.S. (1931) The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vol. 1 Principles of Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1.45.
[5] Peirce, C.S. (1935) The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vol. 6 Scientific Metaphysics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 6.32.
Semiosis 101
