Armchair theorizing
practice of analyzing or synthesizing existing scholarship without new primary research
Armchair theory or armchair philosophy 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.
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.
See also
A priori and a posteriori
Logical truth
Meta-analysis
Thought experiment
Notes
References
Ingold, Tim (2007), "Anthropology is not ethnography", Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 154, pp. 69–92
Nadel, S.F. (1956), "Understanding primitive peoples", Oceania, 26 (3): 159–173, doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1956.tb00676.x
External links
Discussion of On the Politics of Accounting Disclosure and Measurement: An Analysis of Economic Incentives, Dale Morse, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 19, Studies on Standardization of Accounting Practices: An Assessment of Alternative Institutional Arrangements (1981), pp.
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