Unformulable practices? Articulating Practical Understanding in Sociological Theory Mattias Wahlström Department of Sociology Göteborg University Abstract This essay proposes an argument that supports a pragmatic standpoint in relation to sociological description and theorization. The argument is based on a Wittgensteinian approach to human action and tacit knowledge. Taking as a starting point a controversy concerning the role of language in our social practices, it is argued that the whole idea of tacit knowledge, in the sense of in principle unformulable knowledge, is based on a misconception of the nature of description. Theorizing or describing a practice is best conceived as a translation from one social practice to another. Thus, formulability can only be comprehended as a relation between two practices, not as a general characteristic of a practice. The quality of a description, or theory, is dependent on the use that one tries to make of it within another practice. Keywords: Practical understanding, practice theory, pragmatism, rule following, tacit knowledge, Wittgenstein, knowing how. This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 2006, volume 7, issue 2, pp. 121-139, [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1600910X.2006.9672932 .