Middle-range theory (sociology)

[3] The analytical sociology movement has as its aim the unification of such theories into a coherent paradigm at a greater level of abstraction.

Merton agreed with Parsons that a narrow empiricism consisting entirely of simple statistical or observational regularities cannot arrive at successful theory.

However, he found that Parsons' "formulations were remote from providing a problematics and a direction for theory-oriented empirical inquiry into the observable worlds of culture and society".

[5] He was thus directly opposed to the abstract theorizing of scholars who are engaged in the attempt to construct a total theoretical system covering all aspects of social life.

In the recent decades, the analytical sociology programme has emerged as an attempt synthesizing middle-range theories into a more coherent abstract framework (as Merton had hoped would eventually happen).