Middle Range Theory

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:

    “Angry men and furious machines
    Swarm from the little blue of the horizon
    To the great blue of the middle height.”
    —Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    “The variables of quantification, ‘something,’ ‘nothing,’ ‘everything,’ range over our whole ontology, whatever it may be; and we are convicted of a particular ontological presupposition if, and only if, the alleged presuppositum has to be reckoned among the entities over which our variables range in order to render one of our affirmations true.”
    —Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

    “The theory of truth is a series of truisms.”
    —J.L. (John Langshaw)