Armchair theorizing

Armchair theorizing, also known as armchair philosophizing or armchair scholarship, is an approach to providing new developments in a field that does not involve primary research or data collection – but instead analysis or synthesis of existent scholarship. The term is typically pejorative, implying such scholarship is weak or frivolous.[1]

  1. ^ See, for example, Nadel (1956:173), who defines armchair anthropology.