Introduction

Robert K. Merton's standing among sociologists has been variously described but the influence of his contributions is rarely questioned – in the discipline itself or in the social sciences, broadly conceived. His ideas have also affected the thinking of humanists and natural scientists to an uncommon degree given the barriers in the academy that separate the divisions of intellectual labour.

His sociological interests were broad, beginning with the sociology science and knowledge and extending to deviant behaviour and anomie, race and ethnic relations, and also touched on bureaucratic organizations, mass communications, the professions and, of course, theory construction and theorizing. He thought of himself as a theorist but if the problem he addressed called for empirical research, that was what he chose to do. He followed the principle of what he called “disciplined eclecticism” in this and other matters of intellectual choice. Thus, he cannot now, nor could he during his lifetime, be easily type-cast.

He insisted that sociological theorizing and empirical research were mutually sustaining and most effectively pursued in “the middle range” (1968a), that is located between the grand theories of society that were dominant in sociology from the nineteenth century onward and descriptive research that had no specific theoretical impetus. Neither end of the continuum in styles of inquiry, he thought, was conducive to identifying regularities in social life, as the discipline had the potential to do.

He also had the wit to identify unnoticed, persisting and significant social phenomena in various domains of society, including “self-fulfilling prophecies”, “unintended consequences” and “role models”, for just a few examples. He focused on the nature of the phenomena involved in each of them, sought to discover how they came about (that is, to earmark the social mechanisms that produced them), and to detect their consequences. As one who understood the practical as well as the substantive importance of terminology, he invented a battery of terms for the phenomena that interested him. Many of these are still in use among sociologists and many have diffused into the popular language.

Some maintain he was mainly an inventor of terms. Others believe the influence he acquired was excessive. Still others considered his work deeply flawed. Such is the nature of ranking and rating in the world of science and scholarship, especially in assessing the impact of exceptionally dominant contributors.