ECLECTICISM. - From ἐκλέγω (I choose). It is, in general, every philosophical and scientific approach that selects, from various and opposing systems, diverse doctrines, coordinating them into a new synthesis. It was sometimes confused with syncretism (from συγκεράννυμι, "I mix"), which is, if anything, its inferior form.
The term is also accepted by the history of religions; but it has a more common and more proper use in philosophy. Rare among the Greeks, and, in the surviving writings, only in adjectival and adverbial form. Referred to philosophy, it is found in a single text of Diogenes Laertius (3rd century A.D.), who mentions (Vitae, Prooemium, 21) an ἐκλεκτικὴ αἵρεσις (eclectic school) founded by Potamon of Alexandria, a contemporary, according to the Suda, of Augustus. An eclectic school of medicine is named in a text attributed to Galen. Completely unknown are both the thing and the word "eclectic" among the Latins (cf. the Thesaurus linguae latinae, Leipzig 1900 ff.). It reappears from the 16th century onward, yet sporadically and without attaining a well-defined technical meaning. Reinhold (1758-1829) criticizes "a supposed philosophy which by its followers is called eclectic, because it leaves the most complete freedom... to choose from all possible systems whatever each individual writer believes can be reconciled with ordinary human intelligence" (Über das Fundament des philosophischen Wissens; Jena 1791).
Eclecticism acquires greater concreteness with Cousin (v.). He launched his eclecticism in the opening lecture of the course of 1818 (delivered in Dec. 1817); he had probably found the term among the Germans; the first germ of the idea he perhaps had from Leibniz. Two periods are to be distinguished in the eclecticism of V. Cousin: in the first, which extends at least to 1839, it is not only a method of research, but also a system; in the second, clearly attested from 1853, it is denied as a system and survives only as a method. After Cousin the term eclecticism, less used by his followers, is frequent among his opponents, who make of it an equivalent almost of syncretism, or simply a synonym of spiritualism. It passed instead permanently into the general history of philosophy to designate a non-original philosophical thought, which, without the guidance of profound and firm metaphysical principles, believes it can discern by the sole criterion of common sense what there is of true in conflicting systems.
When it is such, eclecticism, whether as a system or as a method, inevitably falls into syncretism: "I consider," wrote Rosmini not without reason in 1837, "that it would be too difficult for Mr. Cousin to avoid the reproach of that syncretism, which is certainly different from eclecticism, although from the one to the other the slip is not difficult" (Lettera al dr. Luigi Gentili, in Opere, ed. naz., II, Rome 1934, p. 380). When, on the other hand, the selection and coordination of various elements drawn from different systems is made on the basis of solid and thorough principles that serve as a directive norm for a new synthesis, it may be said that in substance eclecticism is superated. In fact, if eclecticism were to be called the search for and assimilation of the thought of others, to the extent that it has been recognized as right, none of the most vigorous philosophers could fail to be called eclectic. In the first case, therefore, one practices eclecticism but not genuine philosophy; in the second case, genuine philosophy but not eclecticism.
Bibliography3 works
Felice Cenci
ECLECTICISM IN ART
In art, e. designates a concept concerning different periods and personalities. Improperly, in fact, the term e. has been used with regard to the Carracci (v.), to indicate a historically determined figurative movement.
Meanwhile, the famous sonnet by Agostino Carracci in praise of Niccolò dell'Abate is probably a forgery by Malvasia; nor did the Carracci themselves proceed from a programmatic line as precise as it was artistically unattainable, such as the one indicated in the sonnet: «chi farsi buon pittor cerca e desia - il disegno di Roma abbia alla mano - la mossa, coll'ombraz Veneziano - e il degno colorir di Lombardia - di Michelangiol la terribili via - il vero natural di Tiziano, - del Correggio lo stil puro e sovrano - e di un Rafael la giusta simetria - del Tibaldi il decoro e il fondamento - del dotto Primaticcio l'inventare - e un po' di grazia del Parmigianino...». From the theoretical point of view, the position of the Carracci is merely critical and not artistic, and thus their e. has no particular foundation. In reality, the artist who rapidly undergoes and assimilates figurative influence, though without being devoid of personality, can in general be defined as eclectic. In this respect, even a great painter like Raphael was an eclectic.
On the other hand, the demand for an eclectic position on the part of the artist already appears as a clear fact in the artistic theory of Mannerism, notably in Armentino (Veri precetti della pittura, I, Milan 1820, p. 74), where he treats of the so-called manner, which consists in «knowing and imitating the good through the labors of the most excellent», that is, the possibility of reaching the level of art by drawing the best from the useful example of the great men of the Renaissance.
Bibliography
Luigi Grassi