formalism

noun

• 1excessive adherence to prescribed forms:academic dryness and formalism
• the use of forms of worship without regard to inner significance.
• the basing of ethics on the form of the moral law without regard to intention or consequences.
• concern or excessive concern with form and technique rather than content in artistic creation.
• (in the theater) a symbolic and stylized manner of production.
• the treatment of mathematics as a manipulation of meaningless symbols.

• 2a description of something in formal mathematical or logical terms.