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The congenital ambiguity of action research is easier to perceive, bear, and manage if we consider the conditions that lead us to undertake action research and the outcomes that are achieved. Real progress can be made in situations in which people and groups, for different reasons and with different histories, are willing to enter more directly into contact with one another, and to recognize problems whose solutions are neither guaranteed nor guided by existing knowledge. Researchers are engaged in the same way as the other actors in deconstructing and constructing possible knowledge. As for outcomes, it seems less important to obtain the formulated objectives and carry out the desired changes than to carry out the social action that produces knowledge about the modes of knowledge of the social in those who inhabit society itself. This constitutes unexpected effects and discoveries with a social impact that should not be underestimated, in particular in relation to the weighty questions that are raised about possible forms of integration in our post-modern society.