The pragmatist wave of theory construction Iddo Tavory Introduction Richard Swedberg’s theorizing project is an important contribution to the recent attempts to demystify the moment of theorizing within the arc of the research process. Swedberg encourages social scientists to think about the act of theorizing more explicitly: as a craft to be learned rather than a black box to be admired. He combines a pragmatist-inspired epistemological position, with an attempt to provide a loose set of heuristic and pedagogical guidelines, and a strong pedagogical stance aimed to translate epistemology and heuristics into practice. Below, I situate Swedberg’s theorizing project as part of a new pragmatist wave of theory-construction in sociology, and evaluate some of its components in the spirit of dialogue within a shared community of inquiry, calling into question his distinction between the con- text of discovery and that of justification, and its translation into pre-study and study phases of sociological work. Situating the theorizing project The late 1950s and 60s saw an explosion of books and interest into ‘theory construction’. Trying to close the gap between physical and social sciences, ambitious American theorists set to formalize the attempt to construct theory, i.e., good, formal, law-like, theory. With rolled-up sleeves, a verifica- tionist thrust, and a middle-range ambition, they imagined sociology should be able to find a respectable footing in the sciences. Pretty quickly, how- ever, proponents of the theory construction movement scaled back their search for ‘laws’ as their verificationist optimism was shaken. Even a for- malization of the construction of middle-range theories seemed out of reach. The movement died off, leaving little in its wake. Tavory (Department of Sociology, New York University) (Corresponding author email: iddo.tavory@nyu.edu) V C London School of Economics and Political Science 2016 ISSN 0007-1315 print/1468-4446 online. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA on behalf of the LSE. DOI: 10.1111/1468-4446.12187 The British Journal of Sociology 2016 Volume 67 Issue 1