ABSTRACT
Ideally, people need a theory of mind that would enable them to explain how the social structure exerts an impact upon the structure and content of mental activity. Such a theory would suggest how the perspective brought to inquiry could be rendered more self-conscious and thus brought under more thorough intellectual control. Language provides the basic connective. Language communities develop in particular social contexts; each community of language emerges and takes on specialized form as behavior is coordinated in particular structural settings, and then the developed vocabulary acts as a system of social control which directs perceptions and guides interpretations. Political inquiry is initially guided by ordinary vocabularies derived from the social environment. The perspective, linked to certain reference groups in the society, orients the investigator to the political environment in ways that tend to protect high-level commitments from destruction.
