Category:Formalism

This category contains results about Formalism.
Definitions specific to this category can be found in Definitions/Formalism.

Formalism is the philosophical position that mathematics can be considered as manipulation of symbols independently of their meaning or interpretation.

Hence, to a formalist, the truth value of a statement in mathematics does not depend upon whether or how it describes an independent reality.

Instead, it is a game played according to a set of rules that allow the construction of sequences of symbols from other sequences of symbols.

Hence the concern of a formalist is to provide proofs of consistency that prevent contradictions from being made.

Similarly to intuitionists, formalist do not accept proofs that require an infinite number of steps.