Although the application of social science to practical problems of policy and action is still in its early stages, a large body of experience has been accumulated. Social science has been applied, in diverse spheres and with diverse results. The experience is there, but it has not been systematically reviewed and codified. Consequently, no one knows the present status of applied social science or, more importantly, its potentialities.

No final statement can be made regarding the relations between science and policy-making. Knowledge, values, and techniques are interrelated, cumulative, and constantly changing. They are derived from man's responses to the complicated interactions between physical, biological, and cultural phenomena. Final answers are impossible because the answers themselves are part of the world and therefore are factors in changing it. We see through a glass darkly, whether it be the giant glass of Palomar or the eye-piece of the electron microscope.

The social scientist is now applying his knowledge and skills in various fields. But in the American trade-union movement he faces unusual problems. His challenges are essentially those of determining how to serve, and how to implant a belief in the value of his findings and reports. There is no widespread acceptance of the conclusion that he can make a real contribution. He is still not considered necessary or likely to be useful in the routine operation of the union or in the development of its policy and tactics. Progress has been made during the last few years in securing his admission to the staff of unions. But much pioneering work has still to be done to obtain frank acknowledgment of his potential usefulness and free acceptance of his experimental, inquiring and critical approaches.

In the acute social crisis of our time many people are turning to social science for the solution of our social problems. Society seems to be saying, in effect, “Scientific methodology in the natural sciences and their accompanying technologies has brought us to the brink of extinction; let it save us through the social sciences and their technologies.” The great foundations, governmental agencies, business organizations, and the universities are repsonding to this demand by directing increasing amounts of money and personnel to activities dealing with human relations, intergroup relations, and social “problems” generally.

There should be no disagreement with the proposal for research into the role of applied social science in the formation of policy. The relation between social science and the formation of social policy and social action is, in fact, one of the more important areas of study in the general field of social control. The outline for research prepared by Mr. Merton constitutes a good framework for the investigation of important aspects of the relationship between social science and the world of practical affairs. But there is room for vigorous disagreement with a fundamental assumption about the role of applied social science with which he starts, and there are various broad considerations of importance in framing the proposed study which merit mention or greater elaboration. It is to these matters that this essay is addressed.

The line of thought from which contemporary Social Science has come forth was occupied with problems of public policy in a way which has since become very much less prominent in the work of social scientists. The classic figures of social thought —Aristotle, Plato, Adam Smith, Montesquieu, Jeremy Bentham, James and John Stuart Mill, Ricardo, Hobbes and Locke, Burke, Machiavelli and Hegel—were all involved in the consideration of the fundmental problems of policy from the point of view of the man who had to exercise power and to make practical decisions. Even where they themselves lived in remoteness from practical affairs the clarification of the standards for the judgment and guidance of public policy was always close to the centre of their attention. The politician's problems, reduced to fundamentals, were their problems. The problem of maintaining order through the prince's exercise of power was the point of departure of classical political philosophy; it was extended by modern liberalism to the maintenance of liberty in a framework of order. Political philosophy was regarded by those who professed it, as a means of enlightening rulers—and citizens—as to the right ends and the approximate means. The great ancestor of modern empirical social research, Sir William Petty, who regarded his task as the quantitative matter-of-fact description of what existed, viewed his problem as set by the prince's need to safeguard and maximise his power. Early economic theory accepted the same task. Even after mercantalism gave way to liberalism, economic theory was still intended to be a guide to policy.

In his memorandum, “The Role of Applied Social Science in the Formation of Policy,” Professor Merton has stated that “… all applied social science involves advice (recommendations for policy).” While this statement obviously does not mean that the social scientist is limited solely to giving advice, it does imply a frame of reference in which the primary function of the social scientist appears to be obtaining information, analyzing it, and presenting the results to the policy-maker.

We live in a circular universe, of which each item must be defined in terms of other items, ultimately of its complement-opposite, by their mutual limitation. The employment of abstract, formally consistent, thought in this work is quite inadequate. Abstract thought is not metaphysically valid, because its formal consistency forces it to ignore—which in the realm of pure reason is tantamount to denying—some pertinent elements of reality—experience, and then implicitly at once and perhaps explicitly later to recognize the ignored elements, and thus be unconsciously inconsistent with itself. Therefore mankind is forced to undertake the monumental task of constructing a philosophical method of thought which does not strive after formal consistency and so which is able as constantly as may be consciously to express both (1) the recognized and the (complementary-opposite) ignored elements of reality—experience, that is, in ontological terms, being and non-being, and (2) the consistent and the inconsistent elements in thought. This the needed method can do only by relating items by their mutual restraint or measurement of various kinds and degrees, as will be explained below. To put the essential matter bluntly: philosophers must seek to learn discursively what scientists have always known intuitively—that the ultimate method of discovering truth is measurement, not abstract consistency. The proposed method must not, however, interfere with the rhetorical ordering of material, which must contain a conscious element of pure consistency, as will also be explained below.