The purposes of higher education within society are manifold and diverse, including making a contribution to the economic, social and cultural life of the nation (Universities Act, 1997). Within the policy discourse in the Republic of Ireland, however, the dominance of the human capital model of higher education has been compounded by the continuing success of the Celtic Tiger. The recent OECD review of higher education, for example, makes no reference to the role of higher education in developing the civil, political, social or cultural institutions of society, either locally or globally. The extent to which issues of funding, structures and governance dominate is evident both in the report and in responses from the academic community. Amid warnings of further cuts in public funding, universities look to the market and entrepreneurialism has become one of the new benchmarks for effective academic institutions. Pressure to achieve status as centres of "world-class" research adds to the range of competing imperatives with which institutions have to contend - where "research" is often synonymous with scientific and applied research which will support further economic development.At the same time, the role of higher education in the continuing democratic quest for cohesion, justice, equity and inclusion remains, however marginally, on the agenda,. This sense of social responsibility finds expression in institutional mission statements which include social objectives, such as ensuring greater equity or where they espouse an explicit civic role. One such example is the Community Knowledge Initiative of the National University of Ireland, Galway, which aims to promote greater civic engagement. Service Learning is the primary academic strategy - a form of experiential learning whereby students engage in placements within voluntary or non-profit organisations, reflecting on their experience and on how it relates to their particular programmes of study. Students gain academic credit for demonstrated learning. The explicit aim is to enhance academic learning, civic responsibility and the skills of citizenship while also enhancing community capacity through service. Within the prevailing context, service learning can be described as a relatively unorthodox academic strategy and as a counternormative pedagogy. In this paper, I examine the concept of Service Learning in light of current higher education policy. My purpose is to explore some of the implicit conceptions of knowledge, community and civil society which feature in the theory and practice of service learning. The methodology for this study can be located within the interpretative paradigm, involving a combination of philosophical enquiry into key concepts and the analysis of primary data from unstructured interviews and policy documents. I investigate its underpinning rationale, as gleaned from the literature, project documents and interviews with key informants. Different theoretical perspectives on civil society provide a framework for considering various standpoints on service learning. The unresolved epistemology of service learning will be discussed and the implications for policy and practice within essentially modernist institutions. The respective roles of the student, academic and the community within the service learning triad are interrogated, together with implications for pedagogic practice. Service learning challenges dualism, and its linear, static and hierarchical view of knowledge which privileges the mind over the external world as an object of knowledge. Ironically, since new "projects" require a certain uniqueness as the basis for their identity, efforts to distinguish service learning from other forms of work-based learning, or from volunteering, merely highlight the futility of definitions predicated on dualism.