Adjective
Pertaining to theory; depending on, or confined to, theory or speculation; speculative; terminating in theory or speculation: not practical; as, theoretical learning; theoretic sciences.
Source: Webster's dictionaryThe theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men. Bertrand Russell
The only knowledge that can truly orient action is knowledge that frees itself from mere human interests and is based in Ideas-in other words knowledge that has taken a theoretical attitude. Jürgen Habermas
The line of least resistance in the progress of civilization is to make that theoretical postulate real by the continually increasing force of the world's public opinion. Elihu Root
American institutionalists were not theoretical but anti-theoretical.... Without a theory they had nothing to pass on except a mass of descriptive material waiting for a theory, or a fire. Ronald Coase
I have confronted theoretical positions whose protagonists claim that what I take to be historically produced characteristics of what is specifically modern are in fact the timelessly necessary characteristics of all and any moral judgment, of all and any selfhood. Alasdair MacIntyre
The most important tool of the theoretical physicist is his wastebasket. Albert Einstein