Armchair theorizing

"Armchair historian" redirects here. For the YouTuber, see The Armchair Historian.

Armchair theory is an approach to providing new developments in a field that does not involve analysis of empirical (real-world) data. The term is typically pejorative, implying such scholarship is weak, frivolous, and disconnected from reality.^[1]

Armchair scholarship is often contrasted with the scientific method, which involves the active investigation of nature through data collection or testing and developing rigorous mathematical models. Anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski was a major critic whose views are often summarized in the saying "[come] off the verandah", encouraging fieldwork and participant observation.^{[2]: 10–13 [3]}

See also

• A priori and a posteriori
• Logical truth
• Meta-analysis
• Thought experiment