Any doctrine emphasizing form as against matter or content, especially in aesthetics, ethics, and philosophy of mathematics. (The term is not, however, normally used of a metaphysical preoccupation with Platonic or Aristotelian forms.)
In ethics formalism sees the value or rightness of an action in what kind of action it is (what formal description it satisfies) rather than in its consequences (also see: deontology, a commoner term).
For formalists in the philosophy of mathematics – followers of the German David Hilbert (1862-1943) – the objects of mathematics are mere marks (for example of ink or chalk) which are subjected to certain rules and arranged into formal systems; there is a certain connection with finitism, at least as a method.
Source:
S Korner, The Philosophy of Mathematics (1960), chs 4, 5
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