Formalism may refer to: *

Form (disambiguation) Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form also refers to: * Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter dat ...

* Formal (disambiguation) *

Legal formalism Legal formalism is both a descriptive theory and a normative theory of how judges should decide cases. In its descriptive sense, formalists maintain that judges reach their decisions by applying uncontroversial principles to the facts; formali ...

, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary *

Formalism (linguistics) In linguistics, the term formalism is used in a variety of meanings which relate to formal linguistics in different ways. In common usage, it is merely synonymous with a grammatical model or a syntactic model: a method for analyzing sentence stru ...

Scientific formalism Scientific formalism is a family of approaches to the presentation of science. It is viewed as an important part of the scientific method, especially in the physical sciences. Levels of formalism There are multiple levels of scientific formalism p ...

Formalism (philosophy) The term ''formalism'' describes an emphasis on form over content or meaning in the arts, literature, or philosophy. A practitioner of formalism is called a ''formalist''. A formalist, with respect to some discipline, holds that there is no trans ...

, that there is no transcendent meaning to a discipline other than the literal content created by a practitioner ** Religious formalism, an emphasis on the ritual and observance of religion, rather than its meaning. **

Formalism (philosophy of mathematics) In the philosophy of mathematics, formalism is the view that holds that statements of mathematics and logic can be considered to be statements about the consequences of the manipulation of strings (alphanumeric sequences of symbols, usually as eq ...

, or ''mathematical formalism'', that statements of mathematics and logic can be thought of as statements about the consequences of certain string manipulation rules. **

Formalism (art) In art history, formalism is the study of art by analyzing and comparing form and style. Its discussion also includes the way objects are made and their purely visual or material aspects. In painting, formalism emphasizes compositional elements ...

, that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form ***

Formalism (music) In music theory and especially in the branch of study called the aesthetics of music, formalism is the concept that a Musical composition, composition's meaning is entirely determined by its Musical form, form. Aesthetic theory Leonard B. Meyer, ...

*** Formalist film theory, focused on the formal, or technical, elements of a film ***

Formalism (literature) Formalism is a school of literary criticism and literary theory having mainly to do with structural purposes of a particular text. It is the study of a text without taking into account any outside influence. Formalism rejects or sometimes simply ...

**** New Formalism, a late-20th century movement in American poetry – sometimes called simply "Formalism" **** Russian formalism, school of literary criticism in Russia from the 1910s to the 1930s ***

New Formalism (architecture) New Formalism is an architectural style that emerged in the United States during the mid-1950s and flowered in the 1960s. Buildings designed in that style exhibited many Classical elements including "strict symmetrical elevations"Wiffen, Marcus, ...

, a mid-20th century architectural style, sometimes abbreviated to Formalism

See also