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Formalism   /fˈɔrməlˌɪzəm/   Listen
Formalism

noun
1.
The doctrine that formal structure rather than content is what should be represented.
2.
(philosophy) the philosophical theory that formal (logical or mathematical) statements have no meaning but that its symbols (regarded as physical entities) exhibit a form that has useful applications.
3.
The practice of scrupulous adherence to prescribed or external forms.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Formalism" Quotes from Famous Books



... In the sixteenth century the tea-room afforded a welcome respite from labour to the fierce warriors and statesmen engaged in the unification and reconstruction of Japan. In the seventeenth century, after the strict formalism of the Tokugawa rule had been developed, it offered the only opportunity possible for the free communion of artistic spirits. Before a great work of art there was no distinction between daimyo, samurai, and commoner. Nowadays industrialism is making ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura

... sociological motivation, contains absolutely nothing but struggle itself. The worthless markers, for the sake of which men often play with the same earnestness with which they play for gold pieces, indicate the formalism of this impulse which, even in the play for gold pieces, often far outweighs the material interest. The thing to be noticed, however, is that, in order that the foregoing situations may occur, certain sociological forms—in ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... remark as a disparagement, but we should understand what it is in Emerson that the critic means. He has not the temperament of the great humorists, under whatever planet they may have been born, jovial, mercurial, or saturnine. Even his revolt against formalism is only a new fashion of composure, and sometimes comes dangerously near to moral dilettantism. The persistent identification of everything in nature with everything else sometimes bewilders, fatigues, and almost afflicts ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley

... inductive invention in Bacon: and | their meaning is quite different. | With the rule of certainty and | liberty, Bacon aims at directiy | opposing the old logic, infected by | syllogistic or rhetoric formalism. | | By its title, the NOVUM ORGANUM makes | Bacon's ambition clear: to replace | the Aristotelian organon, which has | governed all knowledge until the end | of the sixteenth century with an | entirely new logical instrument, a | new method for the progress and | profit of ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon

... space to do so to more than a very limited extent; yet two reflections seem to force themselves upon us as the result of the archæological enquiries which have produced the last three chapters of this work. One of these is the evil consequences of a barren formalism in religion. The monkish perfunctory services, with their “vain repetitions” and “long players,” reduced the individual well-nigh to the level of a praying machine, which could run off, as it were, from the reel, so many litanies in a given time, with little effort of intellect, and only ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter


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