Theorizing in social science: The context of discovery by Richard Swedberg

Abstract

Richard Swedberg, well known for his work in economic sociology and one of the doyens of the rising movement in analytical sociology, offers the reader a pessimistic view of the current state-of-the-art about sociological theorizing. Indeed, compared to empirical methods or other sciences such as cognitive science, sociological theory has advanced little over the last decades. The prognosis is simple: students and researchers are taught theories but cannot theorize. If this is the case, then what is to be done? What does ‘theorizing’ mean exactly?