Theory In Action

Peter Sohlberg, Ph.D. (1997), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), is Professor in Philosophy of Social Science at NTNU. He has published monographs and articles in the fields of philosophy of science, sociology and social psychology. He has been teaching social theory and philosophy of social science since the early 1990s in Uppsala, Stockholm and Trondheim.Håkon Leiulfsrud, Ph.D. (1991), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), is Professor in Sociology at NTNU. He has published his work in the field of sociology with a special interest in social inequality and social stratification, social change and work. He has been teaching sociological theory, qualitative methods and social stratification in Trondheim since the mid-1990s.

• List of figuresAbout the AuthorsChapter1. Theory and theoretical operationsPeter Sohlberg and Håkon Leiulfsrud2. On the heuristic role of concepts in theorizingRichard Swedberg3. Sociology and the power of (ordinary) languageWilly Guneriussen4. Weber’s ideal types: a sociological operation between theory and methodPål Strandbakken5. Class operations and measuresHåkon Leiulfsrud and Annick Prieur6. Question-driven sociology and methodological contextualismRagnvald Kalleberg7. If not, why not and what if: asking counterfactual questionsGöran Ahrne8. Abduction – assessing fruitfulness and the construction of scientific conceptsRoar Hagen9. Theorising through comparative case studiesMette Andersson10. Explanatory practices in sociology. An overviewWilly Martinussen11. A thick description of Robert K. Merton’s middle range theory – manifest properties and latent ambivalencePeter SohlbergIndex