ABSTRACT
The question of what the 'appropriate' role of the social scientist might be in society at large, particularly as concerns the potential applicability of social science knowledge to topics defined as 'recognized problems', is one that has received a great deal of attention. Unfortunately much of this attention has remained at the level of polemic and is exemplified by two opposed stances: that which argues for the isolation of research as necessary for the development of social science theory, as against that which advocates the inescapable necessity of the social sciences advancing only through a direct involvement with discrete problems.
