Secondness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality or state of existing as a direct relation or interaction between two distinct entities; the experience of opposition or resistance that reveals the reality of an external other; the fundamental aspect of actuality manifesting in dyadic encounter
2. The condition characterized by the interrelation or mutual influence of two separate things; the perception of external reality through confrontation or reaction with something outside oneself; the basic principle of experiential opposition inherent in existence
3. The state defining the interplay or reciprocal connection between two elements; the awareness of otherness through encounter or resistance from another entity; the essential concept highlighting relational reality and the experience of duality

Etymology: "Secondness" is a plain compound: the adjective "second" with the suffix "-ness," which turns an adjective into a noun for a state or quality. Its literal sense is simply "the quality of being second," and the "-ness" suffix is what allows "second" to name an abstract condition rather than an ordinal position in a sequence. The philosophical sense owes its prominence to the American thinker Charles Sanders Peirce, who used "secondness" as one of three basic categories of experience, alongside "firstness" (raw, unmediated quality) and "thirdness" (mediation, law, and habit). Secondness is the category of brute reaction: the jolt of meeting something that is not yourself and pushes back against you, which is how the awareness of otherness arises.

Synonyms: duality, otherness

Antonyms: firstness, oneness