ABSTRACT
This chapter utilizes the case of research directed to the delivery of aural rehabilitation services to illustrate the force of taking an individualist rather than a contextualist approach. Some features of what is discussed will be peculiar to that arena; the general issues surely apply to other forms of research work associated with health and well-being. The purpose of undertaking health research is to try to improve procedures for alleviating impairments, or at least to make their effects less disabling. The preferred approach to rehabilitation is based upon the provision of personal prostheses, fitted according to carefully determined prescription rules based on a hearing test. There is a classical framework which opposes the 'person in context' approach and defends that of the 'individual subject'; there is a more recent framework that justifies the 'person in context' approach. The term 'individual subject' is used to highlight a paradoxical feature of that approach.
