What makes certain types of theories creative, and how does one go about theorizing in a creative way? The contributors to this landmark collection—top social scientists in the fields of sociology, economics, and management—draw on personal experiences and new findings to provide a range of answers to these questions. Some turn to cognitive psychology and neuroscience's impact on our understanding of human thought, others encourage greater dialogue between and across the arts and sciences, while still others focus on the processes by which observation leads to conceptualization. Taken together, however, the chapters collectively and actively encourage a shift in the place of theory in social science today. Appealing to students and scientists across disciplines, this collection will inspire innovative approaches to producing, teaching, and learning theory.

Contributors

1 From Theory to Theorizing

2 Intuitionist Theorizing

3 Analogy, Cases, and Comparative Social Organization

4 The Unsettlement of Communities of Inguiry

5 Three Frank Questions to Discipline Your Theorizing

6 Mundane Theorizing, Bricolage, and Bildung

7 The Counterfactual Imagination

8 The Work of Theorizing

9 Susan Sontag and Heteroscedasticity

Afterword

Notes

Bibliography