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This article is about the meanings of the word form connected with shape or structure. For other meanings, see Form (disambiguation).

Form (Lat. forma Eng. mould), refers to the external three-dimensional outline, appearance or configuration of some thing - in contrast to the matter or content or substance of which it is composed (compare with shape).

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Thus a speech may contain excellent arguments (the matter may be good), whereas the style, grammar, arrangement (the form) may be bad. "Form is supposed to cover the shape and structure of the work; content its substance, meaning, ideas, or expressive effects." (Middleton 1999, p.141) The term, with its adjective formal and the derived nouns formality and formalism, is hence sometimes contemptuously used for that which is superficial, unessential, hypocritical: chapter 23 of Matthew's gospel is a classical instance of the distinction between the formalism of the Pharisaic code and genuine religion. With this may be compared the popular phrases good form and bad form applied to behaviour in society: so format (from the French) is technically used of the shape and size, e.g. of a book (octavo, quarto, etc.) or of a cigarette.

The word form is also applied to certain definite objects: in printing a body of type secured in a chase for printing at one impression (form or forme); a bench without a back, such as is used in schools (perhaps to be compared with the French s'asseoir en forme, to sit in a row); a mould or shape on or in which an object is manufactured; the lair or nest of a hare. From its use in the sense of regulated order comes the application of the term to a class in a school (sixth form, fifth form, etc.); this sense has been explained without sufficient ground as due to the idea of all children in the same class sitting on a single form (bench).

Form

Form can also be used to denote a level of preparedness, recent proficiency or success e.g. 'The racehorse's form has been poor of late' to describe a horse's recent racing performance rather than its historic physical form or 'Hossam Ghaly hopes to continue his recent run of good form in the Tottenham Hotspur 1st XI'. This particular meaning of the word 'form' highlights a peculiar unity - harmonious antecedent physical and mental form precipitates fine form in terms of resultant performance as a consequence. Determinism ensures the instantiation of one mode of form necessitates its expression in another mode. Whether this unity is a necessary property of a physically determined world or is simply a synthetic unity of language is open to debate.

Form

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into form (document). (Discuss)

Form also refers to a document that is commonly used to request information and data. Forms are available in printed or electronic format, the latter being the most versatile as it enables the user to type the requested information using a computer keyboard and allows them to easily distribute the content contained within using the Internet and email.

Form in philosophy

The word has had various usages in philosophy. It has been used to translate the Platonic idea (eidos), the permanent reality which makes a thing what it is, in contrast with the thing's particulars, which are finite and subject to change. Whether Plato understood these forms as actually existent apart from all the particular examples, or as being of the nature of immutable physical laws, is a matter of controversy. For practical purposes, Aristotle was the first to distinguish between matter (hyle) and form (morphe). To Aristotle matter is the undifferentiated primal element: it is rather that from which things develop than a thing in itself. The development of particular things from this germinal matter consists in differentiation, the acquiring of particular forms of which the knowable universe consists (cf. causation for the Aristotelian formal cause). The perfection of the form of a thing is its entelechy in virtue of which it attains its fullest realization of function (De anima, ii. 2). Thus the entelechy of the body is the soul. The origin of the differentiation process is to be sought in a prime mover, i.e. pure form entirely separate from all matter, eternal, unchangeable, operating not by its own activity but by the impulse which its own absolute existence excites in matter.

The Aristotelian conception of form was nominally, though perhaps in most cases unintelligently, adopted by the Scholastics, to whom, however, its origin in the observation of the physical universe was an entirely foreign idea. The most remarkable adaptation is probably that of Aquinas, who distinguished the spiritual world with its subsistent forms (formae separatae) from the material with its inherent forms which exist only in combination with matter. Bacon, returning to the physical standpoint, maintained that all true research must be devoted to the discovery of the real nature or essence of things. His induction searches for the true form of light, heat and so forth, analysing the external form given in perception into simpler forms and their differences. Thus he would collect all possible instances of hot things, and discover that which is present in all, excluding all those qualities which belong accidentally to one or more of the examples investigated: the form of heat is the residuum common to all. Kant transferred the term from the objective to the subjective sphere. All perception is necessarily conditioned by pure forms of sensibility, i.e. space and time: whatever is perceived is perceived as having spatial and temporal relations (see Duration; Kant). These forms are not obtained by abstraction from sensible data, nor are they strictly speaking innate: they are obtained by the very action of the mind from the co-ordination of its sensation.

See also

• Pattern
• The Forms
• Shape

References

• Richard Middleton. "Form", in Horner, Bruce and Swiss, Thomas, eds. (1999) Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture. Malden, Massachusetts. ISBN 0-631-21263-9.
• Władysław Tatarkiewicz, A History of Six Ideas: an Essay in Aesthetics, translated from the Polish by Christopher Kasparek, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1980. (Traces the history of key aesthetics concepts, including art, beauty, form, creativity, mimesis, and the aesthetic experience.)