Formal science is a branch of science studying disciplines concerned with abstract structures described by

formal system A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to a set of rules. These rules, which are used for carrying out the inference of theorems from axioms, are the logical calculus of the formal system. A form ...

s, such as

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...

, mathematics, statistics,

theoretical computer science computer science (TCS) is a subset of general computer science and mathematics that focuses on mathematical aspects of computer science such as the theory of computation, lambda calculus, and type theory. It is difficult to circumscribe the ...

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

, information theory,

game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...

systems theory Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...

decision theory Decision theory (or the theory of choice; not to be confused with choice theory) is a branch of applied probability theory concerned with the theory of making decisions based on assigning probabilities to various factors and assigning numerical ...

, and

theoretical linguistics Theoretical linguistics is a term in linguistics which, like the related term general linguistics, can be understood in different ways. Both can be taken as a reference to theory of language, or the branch of linguistics which inquires into the n ...

. Whereas the

natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

s and

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...

s seek to characterize

physical systems A physical system is a collection of physical objects. In physics, it is a portion of the physical universe chosen for analysis. Everything outside the system is known as the environment. The environment is ignored except for its effects on the ...

and

social system In sociology, a social system is the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions. It is the formal structure of role and status that can form in a small, stable group. A ...

s, respectively, using empirical methods, the formal sciences use language tools concerned with characterizing abstract structures described by

formal systems A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to a set of rules. These rules, which are used for carrying out the inference of theorems from axioms, are the logical calculus of the formal system. A form ...

. The formal sciences aid the natural and social sciences by providing information about the structures used to describe the physical world, and what inferences may be made about them.

Etymology

The modern usage of the term ''formal sciences'', in English-language literature, occurs at least as early as 1860, in a posthumous publication of lectures on philosophy by Sir William Hamilton wherein logic and mathematics are listed as formal sciences. Going even further back to 1819, a German-language textbook on logic was published by

Wilhelm Esser Wilhelm Esser (1798–1854) was a German academic, logician, and philosopher. His works focused on logic, psychology, and moral philosophy. Esser is also identified as a post-Kantian logician. Biography Esser was born on February 21, 1798, in D ...

, elucidating the significance of the designation ''formal science'' (''Formalwissenschaft'') as applied to logic; an English-language translation of it is provided in William Hamilton's lecture:

History

Formal sciences began before the formulation of the

scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific ...

, with the most ancient

mathematical Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

texts dating back to 1800 BC (

Babylonian mathematics Babylonian mathematics (also known as ''Assyro-Babylonian mathematics'') are the mathematics developed or practiced by the people of Mesopotamia, from the days of the early Sumerians to the centuries following the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. Babyl ...

), 1600 BC ( Egyptian mathematics) and 1000 BC ( Indian mathematics). From then on, different cultures such as the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, Arab and Persian made major contributions to mathematics, while the

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

and

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, independently of more distant cultures, developed their own mathematical tradition. Besides mathematics,

is another example of one of oldest subjects in the field of the formal sciences. As an explicit analysis of the methods of reasoning, logic received sustained development originally in three places:

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

from the ,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

in the , and

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

between the and the . The formally sophisticated treatment of modern logic descends from the Greek tradition, being informed from the transmission of Aristotelian logic, which was then further developed by Islamic logicians. The Indian tradition also continued into the early modern period. The native Chinese tradition did not survive beyond antiquity, though Indian logic was later adopted in

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

China. As a number of other disciplines of formal science rely heavily on mathematics, they did not exist until mathematics had developed to a relatively advanced level.

Pierre de Fermat Pierre de Fermat (; between 31 October and 6 December 1607 – 12 January 1665) was a French mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he ...

and

Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pa ...

(1654), and Christiaan Huygens (1657) started the earliest study of

probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set o ...

. In the early 1800s,

Gauss Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; german: Gauß ; la, Carolus Fridericus Gauss; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. Sometimes refer ...

and Laplace developed the mathematical theory of statistics, which also explained the use of statistics in insurance and governmental accounting. Mathematical statistics was recognized as a mathematical discipline in the early 20th century. In the mid-20th century, mathematics was broadened and enriched by the rise of new

mathematical science The mathematical sciences are a group of areas of study that includes, in addition to mathematics, those academic disciplines that are primarily mathematical in nature but may not be universally considered subfields of mathematics proper. Statisti ...

s and engineering disciplines such as

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve deci ...

and systems engineering. These sciences benefited from basic research in electrical engineering and then by the development of electrical computing, which also stimulated information theory,

numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of ...

(

scientific computing Computational science, also known as scientific computing or scientific computation (SC), is a field in mathematics that uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and solve complex problems. It is an area of science that spans many disc ...

), and

. Theoretical computer science also benefits from the discipline of

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of for ...

, which includes the

theory of computation In theoretical computer science and mathematics, the theory of computation is the branch that deals with what problems can be solved on a model of computation, using an algorithm, how algorithmic efficiency, efficiently they can be solved or t ...

Branches

Branches of formal science include

, mathematics, statistics, data science,

information science Information science (also known as information studies) is an academic field which is primarily concerned with analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection of informatio ...

, systems science and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

Differences from other sciences

As opposed to

empirical science In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiri ...

s (natural and social), the formal sciences do not involve empirical procedures. They also do not presuppose knowledge of contingent facts, or describe the real world. In this sense, formal sciences are both logically and methodologically ''

a priori ("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ...

'', for their content and validity are independent of any empirical procedures. Therefore, strictly speaking, formal science is not an empirical science. It is a formal logical system with its content targeted at components of experiential reality, such as information and thoughts. As

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

pointed out in the 17th century, experimental verification of the propositions must be carried out rigorously and cannot take logic itself as the way to draw conclusions in nature. Formal science is a method that is helpful to empirical science but cannot replace empirical science. Although formal sciences are conceptual systems, lacking empirical content, this does not mean that they have no relation to the real world. But this relation is such that their formal statements hold in all possible conceivable worlds – whereas, statements based on empirical theories, such as, say,

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...

evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...

, do not hold in all possible worlds, and may eventually turn out not to hold in this world as well. That is why formal sciences are applicable in all domains and useful in all empirical sciences. Because of their non-empirical nature, formal sciences are construed by outlining a set of

axioms An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or f ...

and

definitions A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definiti ...

from which other statements (

theorems In mathematics, a theorem is a statement that has been proved, or can be proved. The ''proof'' of a theorem is a logical argument that uses the inference rules of a deductive system to establish that the theorem is a logical consequence of the ...

) are deduced. For this reason, in Rudolf Carnap's logical-positivist conception of the

epistemology of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ult ...

, theories belonging to formal sciences are understood to contain no synthetic statements, instead containing only analytic statements.

References

External links

* {{Commonscat-inline, Formal sciences
Interdisciplinary conferences — ''Foundations of the Formal Sciences''
Branches of science