Full Idea
Term Formalism is the view that mathematics is just about characters or symbols - the systems of numerals and other linguistic forms. ...This will cover integers and rational numbers, but what are real numbers supposed to be, if they lack names?
Gist of Idea
Term Formalism says mathematics is just about symbols - but real numbers have no names
Source
Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 6.1.1)
Book Reference
Shapiro,Stewart: 'Thinking About Mathematics' [OUP 2000], p.142
A Reaction
Real numbers (such as pi and root-2) have infinite decimal expansions, so we can start naming those. We could also start giving names like 'Harry' to other reals, though it might take a while. OK, I give up.