“Final Vocabulary”
Rorty explains, “All human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives. These are the words in which we formulate praise of our friends and contempt for our enemies, our long-term projects, our deepest self-doubts and our highest hopes. They are the words in which we tell, sometimes prospectively and sometimes retrospectively, the story of our lives." The words are instrumental in the communication of every person’s ideologies regarding various issues. Rorty describes them as ‘final vocabulary’ because they are expected to be used during one’s communication and they appear prominently in a person’s sentences. Without the words, it would be challenging for one to express his or her stand on various issues.
Ironist
Rorty states, “I shall define an "ironist" as someone who fulfils three conditions: (1) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies…(2) she realizes that argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts; (3) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others.” Ironists do not stick to a specific list of ‘final vocabulary.” They are skeptical about their preferred vocabularies; hence, they change them often. Ironists strive to compare new vocabularies to the vocabularies which they utilized in the past. They strive to find ‘neutral vocabulary’ when describing various realities.
Books
Rorty describes, “The books which help us become less cruel can be roughly divided into (1) books which help us see the effects of social practices and institutions on others and (2) those which help us see the effects of our private idiosyncrasies on others.” Books focusing on “social practices and institutions” condemn harmful activities which are detrimental to victims such as racism. The books exploring the implications of ‘private idiosyncrasies’ depict the role which the idiosyncrasies play in promoting cruelty among humanity. Both categories of books promote the ideology of reducing cruelty among humans for they deconstruct the negative effects of the cruelty.
Metaphors
Rorty observes, “Davidson puts this point by saying that one should not think of metaphorical expressions as having meanings distinct from their literal ones. To have a meaning is to have a place in a language game. Metaphors, by definition, do not. Davidson denies, in his words, "the thesis that associated with a metaphor is a cognitive content that its author wishes to convey and that the interpreter must grasp if he is to get the message.” Metaphors should not be interpreted literally for they may be used to allude to covert facts, and metaphors should be relevant to the context in which they are employed to ensure that the listeners would get the intended meanings. Metaphors should not be used to complicate language; they should be used to simplify it.
Truth
Rorty concludes, “In his (Nietzsche) view, in achieving this sort of self knowledge we are not coming to know a truth which was out there (or in here) all the time. Rather, he saw self-knowledge as self-creation. The process of coming to know oneself, confronting one's contingency, tracking one's causes home, is identical with the process of inventing a new language.” The course of truth, in Nietzsche view, permits individuals to create their authentic selves using knowledges they have. The self-knowledge is not created from scratch though because self-knowledge is inherent. Understanding oneself is analogous to the creation of a novel language which one was not aware of prior to the self-creation.
