Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary
Formalism (philosophy), that there is no transcendent meaning to a discipline other than the literal content created by a practitioner
Formalism (mathematics), that statements of mathematics and logic can be thought of as statements about the consequences of certain string manipulation rules.
Formalism (art), that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form
