ФОРМАЛИЗМ

Formalism

1. A general name for an anti-realistic method which includes many trends and schools in the art and aesthetics of bourgeois society in the epoch of imperialism (see Abstract Art, Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism, Purism, Primitivism, Fauvism, Tachism). All these trends, notwithstanding some or other distinctions, have common features: they counterpose art to reality, divorce the artistic form from the idea-content and proclaim the autonomy and primacy of form in works of art. Formalism stems from the idealistic understanding of aesthetic pleasure, which it alleges to be free from social ideas, vital interests, from the aesthetic and social ideals and, therefore, entirely dependent on the "play of pure forms". Actually formalism usually reveals the full dependence of the content of works on bourgeois ideology. At the same time the divorce of form from content in art inevitably leads to its destruction, although this is claimed to be "form-creation". Formalism is hostile to socialist art.

2. A trend in mathematics which tries to solve the problems of foundations of mathematics by means of formal axiomatic constructions. Formalism arose at the beginning of the century (the German mathematician D. Hilbert, and his colleagues W. Ackermann, P. Bernays, and G. Neumann). In contrast to intuitionism, Hilbert seeks foundations for mathematics in a strictly elaborated formalised axiomatic method. The truth of a theory obtained by this method is understood by Hilbert as its non-contradiction. Thus Hilbert reduces the truth-value of mathematics to its non-contradiction and tries to prove the latter in mathematics itself. But such an attempt runs counter to the achievements of modern mathematics (Gödel's second theorem). Formalism is also untenable from the philosophical viewpoint, because ultimately a mathematical theory, like any other, finds its proof in practice, in its conformity to the object. To try and deduce the truth of any theory, as Hilbert does with regard to mathematics, from the internal conformity of thoughts means to defend in one way or another the positions of idealism. This does not negate the positive results achieved by exponents of formalism in the proof theory.

Формализм

Выдвижение на первый план внешней стороны вопроса, формы, а не содержания; отрыв формы от содержания. Формализм в искусстве–такое направление, сторонники которого (писатели, музыканты, художники) уделяют всё своё внимание внешней стороне произведения в ущерб его содержанию. Например, поэт-формалист пишет стихотворение ради словесной игры, созвучия стихов, а не для выражения определённых идей и переживаний. Такие произведения отличаются вычурностью и отсутствием жизненной правды.

Формализм характерен для современного буржуазного искусства, уклоняющегося от правдивого изображения жизни. Горький считал, что формализм «чаще всего служит для прикрытия пустоты или нищеты души. ...Некоторые авторы пользуются формализмом, как средством одеть свои мысли так, чтобы не сразу было ясно их уродливо-враждебное отношение к действительности, их намерение исказить смысл фактов и явлений». Формализм чужд советскому искусству.

Формализм

В математике, см. Математический формализм.