Final Vocabularies (Rorty) vs. Keywords (Williams)

Richard Rorty’s concept of final vocabularies and Raymond Williams’ notion of keywords share certain similarities, as both deal with the fundamental terms people use to navigate social, cultural, and political life. However, there are significant differences in their scope, function, and focus.

Rorty’s final vocabularies refer to the set of words and descriptions that individuals use to make sense of the world, justify their actions, and express their identity. These terms are “final” because they are the ultimate limit of a person’s worldview—terms that can’t be easily questioned without causing existential discomfort. For Rorty, final vocabularies are contingent on historical and cultural contexts, meaning they are neither universal nor fixed, but are deeply personal and form the basis of an individual's belief system.

Key features of Rorty's final vocabularies:

• Personal and individual: Final vocabularies are deeply tied to a person’s sense of self and are the basis for how they interpret reality.
• Contingent: They are products of historical and cultural circumstances, meaning they could have been different.
• Irony and self-awareness: For Rorty, the “ironist” is someone who recognizes that their final vocabulary is contingent and open to change, whereas non-ironists hold onto theirs as immutable.

For more on Rorty's concept, see: Final Vocabularies.

Raymond Williams’ keywords, introduced in his book *Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society*, are central terms in the English language that carry significant cultural, social, and political meaning. Williams was interested in how these words reflect and shape societal values and conflicts. Unlike Rorty’s more personal focus, Williams examines how certain words become “keywords” through their historical evolution and cultural contestation.

Williams studied how terms like “culture,” “democracy,” “class,” and “individual” have evolved in their meanings and been debated in public discourse. For Williams, keywords are culturally significant words that carry ideological weight and whose meanings are often contested by different social groups.

Key features of Williams’ keywords:

• Public and collective: Keywords are part of shared language and reflect collective debates, ideologies, and cultural practices.
• Historically grounded: Williams traces how these words have changed over time, showing the evolution of their meanings in response to social, political, and economic changes.
• Culturally contested: Keywords are often battlegrounds for different interpretations, reflecting conflicts over meaning and power in society.

• Rorty’s final vocabularies focus on the personal, individual level. These are the words that form the foundation of a person’s identity and worldview. Final vocabularies are how an individual justifies their beliefs and actions, and they are deeply tied to personal experience.
• Williams’ keywords are primarily collective and social. They exist in the public domain and are shared by entire societies. These words reflect collective concerns and are often sites of conflict between different social groups and ideologies.

Both Rorty and Williams agree that language is contingent and shaped by historical and cultural contexts, but they explore this in different ways.

• For Rorty, the contingency of final vocabularies means that an individual’s core beliefs and descriptions are not grounded in any universal truth—they are subject to change as the individual encounters new vocabularies or worldviews.
• Williams is also interested in how words evolve, but his focus is on historical changes in the meanings of words and how these changes reflect broader shifts in culture and society.

• Rorty’s concept of the ironist—someone who recognizes that their final vocabulary is contingent and revisable—has no direct equivalent in Williams’ framework. While Williams highlights the contested nature of keywords and how they are subject to social change, he is less focused on the individual’s self-awareness in relation to their vocabulary.
• Rorty’s final vocabularies demand a kind of self-critical, ironic stance, where the individual is aware that their most fundamental beliefs are contingent and open to revision. In contrast, Williams’ work is more descriptive of how language functions in culture rather than advocating a specific stance on one’s relationship to their vocabulary.

• For Williams, keywords are often sites of ideological contestation. Words like “democracy,” “freedom,” or “class” are not just descriptive terms; they are loaded with political and social significance, and different groups will fight over their meanings. This reflects Williams' Marxist-influenced focus on how language reflects and reproduces power dynamics in society.
• Rorty, while acknowledging the contingency of language, is less interested in power struggles over specific terms and more focused on how individuals use language to navigate their personal beliefs and commitments. For Rorty, final vocabularies are less about public contestation and more about personal coherence and identity.

While both Rorty and Williams are concerned with the contingency of language and the importance of specific words in shaping belief and action, they approach the issue from different angles:

• Rorty’s final vocabularies are personal, contingent sets of terms that define an individual’s worldview, emphasizing the individual’s relationship to their language and the possibility of irony and revision.
• Williams’ keywords are collective, socially significant words whose meanings evolve and are contested within broader cultural and political struggles, highlighting the role of language in social power and conflict.

Both concepts underscore the power of language in shaping thought and action, but Rorty’s focus on individual self-awareness and contingency contrasts with Williams’ interest in the historical, collective, and contested nature of key cultural terms.

For more on Rorty’s ideas, visit: Final Vocabularies in Rorty.

For an overview of how language functions in the Communitarium, see: Solidarity in the Communitarium.