theoretical

theoretical, *speculative, academic can be applied to minds, types of reasoning or philosophizing, or branches of learning as meaning concerned principally with abstractions and theories, sometimes at the expense of practical basis or application. Theoretical in its most usual and nonderogatory sense applies to branches of learning (as sciences) which deal with the inferences drawn from observed facts and from the results of experiments and with the laws or theories that explain them

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the distinguishing feature of theoretical science is the anticipation of facts from experience— Georg von Wright

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In this sense the term is often opposed to applied, which describes branches of learning which have to do with the putting of such laws and theories into use (as in mechanics, in industry, or in social reform)

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theoretical versus applied chemistry

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applied ethics is grounded upon theoretical ethics

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a purely theoretical definition would be that a person is emotionally sensitive when many stimuli produce emotions in him— Russell

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But theoretical often implies a divorce from actuality or reality that makes one unable to see things as they are and usually makes him see them only in the terms of preexistent ideas or theories. In this sense it is opposed to practical

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seems compelled to establish that . . . the book does have great practical importance in spite of its predominantly theoretical character— M. G. White

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things that had seemed drearily theoretical, dry, axiomatic, platitudinal, showed themselves to be great generalizations from a torrent of human effort and mortal endeavor— Benson

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Speculative (see also THOUGHTFUL 1) may go further than theoretical in suggesting a deep interest in theorizing or in forming theories or hypotheses and often additionally implies a daring use of the imagination

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the rights of man . . . were necessarily more abstract, more detached from usage and concrete applicability, more open to speculative interpre-tation— Sabine

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so vaguely speculative are they that their author found it necessary to explain them in lengthy prefaces—W. J. Fisher

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Often, however, there is very little difference evident in the use of these terms

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was a great inventor and builder, but in the speculative and theoretic side of science he had little interest— Buchan

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this is about as far as speculative chemistry will take one in this field; and the rest of the subject is experimental— Furnas

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Academic (see also PEDANTIC) carries a much stronger implication of a habit of looking at a thing, or things in general, abstractly, without reference to real life or practical concerns, and often in terms of the theories and dicta of a particular school (as of literature or art) (academic thinkers and schoolmen, men whom the free spaces of thought frightened and who felt safe only behind secure fences— Partington)

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apart from its academic tendency to divorce form from matter, I cannot believe that any such theory of poetry, built on a neurosis, is admirable or adequate— Day Lewis

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Analogous words: conjectural, hypothetical (see SUPPOSED): postu-lated, premised, presupposed (see PRESUPPOSE)