Middle range theory can refer to theories in:
- Middle-range theory (archaeology) - describes how people use objects and structures and the human behaviors associated with this use; it is based on the more known
- Middle range theory (sociology) - as discussed by Robert K. Merton is a theory with limited scope, that explains a specific set of phenomena, as opposed to a grand theory like that proposed by Talcott Parsons that seeks to explain phenomena at a societal level.
Famous quotes containing the words middle, range and/or theory:
“A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“Narrowed-down by her early editors and anthologists, reduced to quaintness or spinsterish oddity by many of her commentators, sentimentalized, fallen-in-love with like some gnomic Garbo, still unread in the breadth and depth of her full range of work, she was, and is, a wonder to me when I try to imagine myself into that mind.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienest who does not debase his theory of the healthful with a theory of the virtuous.... The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)