Abstract
This study attempts to analyze the "turn to practice" in the social sciences and demonstrates how the actual research practices in the social sciences are affected by the absence of"standard" forms, methods or styles of research. The focus on issues related to the shaping of "standard" research practice brings accounts of social scientific researchpractices together with the issues of accumulation, synergy and public relevance of social knowledge.
The core ideas of the so-called "new" sociology of ideas, which is behind the whole project aiming at the analysis of social practices manifested in processes of the "production, evaluation and application" of social knowledge, are also presented in detail. It follows from the argument elaborated in this text that it seems inevitable to rethink the very concept of "professional" social science, which was rejected in an earlier development as morally and practically untenable, since the democratization of the research process and the transformation of the relation between the social sciences and their audience(s) manifest more and more distinctly that with the departure from the concept of professional social science, the public irrelevance of social knowledge is more and more transparent and pervading.