Tools
Rorty elucidates, “Davidson spells out the implications of Wittgenstein's treatment of vocabularies as tools by raising explicit doubts about the assumptions underlying traditional pre-Wittgensteinian accounts of language. These accounts have taken for granted that questions like "Is the language we are presently using the 'right' language.” Equating vocabularies to tools indicates that they are instrumental building blocks of language. The ‘ rightness’ of vocabularies is dependent on the context in which they are utilized.
“A Mobile Army of Metaphors”
Rorty recounts, “This account of intellectual history chimes with Nietzsche's definition of "truth" as "a mobile army of metaphors." Metaphors are useful in relaying truths because they offer direct comparisons relating to various ideas. The metaphors enable audiences to discern the hidden meanings of various concepts. As long as the metaphors are relevant, they provide ideas that increase truth and develop theories of language.
“Unfinished Poem”
Rorty recommends, “Nabokov built his best book, Pale Fire, around the phrase "Man's life as commentary to abstruse unfinished poem." That phrase serves both as a summary of Freud's claim that every human life is the working out of a sophisticated idiosyncratic fantasy, and as a reminder that no such working out gets completed before death interrupts.” Comparing life to an unfinished life indicates that it can never be completed. Gaps in life increase each new day. Humans continuously strive to comprehend and meet their unconscious desires that cannot be depleted.
Temptation
Rorty writes, “The temptation to look for criteria is a species of the more general temptation to think of the world, or the human self, as possessing an intrinsic nature, an essence. That is, it is the result of the temptation to privilege some one among the many languages in which we habitually describe the world or ourselves." The allegorical temptations guide humanity to come up with languages or phrases which would support their self-discovery besides qualifying them to relate with the world and be satisfied in it. Humanity yearns to experience belonging in their world.
Medium
Rorty poses, "Does the medium between the self and reality get them together or keep them apart?" "Should we see the medium primarily as a medium of expression - of articulating what lies deep within the self? " The medium is emblematic of consciousness that distinguishes 'self from reality.' The distinction occurs through the use of language during the expression of one's self. Through consciousness one discerns the aspects which are real and those which are founded on imaginations.
